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465

Enundations and Pestilence.

ESIDES the details connected with these remarkable Visits of Royalty, which are here recorded apart from the main History, there are some other events to which it is now necessary to attend, as historically connected with Perth, although purposely omitted from the chronological order. Of these we shall first take into account two species of calamity to which the City has been occasionally subject-viz. Inundations and visitations of Pestilence. The latter is not of course peculiar to Perth: to the former it is frequently and specially exposed. First, then, as to

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INUNDATIONS.

The most remarkable of these on record, as having been peculiarly destructive, occurred in 1210, 1621, 1740, 1773, and 1814. In the fall of 1847 there was a very alarming flood; and its devastions, although not so serious as on some former occasions, were nevertheless very annoying and of considerable magnitude. And in the month of January, of the current year, there were two successive inundations, one of which, on the 25th of that month, rose to within about two feet of that in October, 1847. Of the overwhelming casualty of 1210, notice has been already taken in the course of the previous history-page 36.

INUNDATION OF 1621.

In regard to that of 1621, Cant records, that the Bridge was totally demolished by the overflowing of the river on the 14th October that year. The surreptitious and imperfect History of Calderwood gives the following account of this desolation:-" October 14, A.D. 1621, the stately Bridge of Perth, newly completed, consisting of ten arches, was destroyed by the high swelling of the river Tay. The water of Almond, and a loch bewest the town, came down on the west hand, as dangerous as the river on the east. The town was environed with water, so that none could pass out for five or six days, nor could the inhabitants go from house to house for the water in the streets. Young children were let down at windows by cords into boats. The people ascribed this wrack to

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