Dee, a Welsh and English river, issuing from Bala Lake, in Merionethshire, and flowing NE.,
N., and NW. to the Irish Sea. Near Trevor it is crossed by the Ellesmere Canal, on an aqueduct 1007 feet long and 120 high; and also by the stone viaduct of the Chester and Shrewsbury Railway, of 19 arches, each 90 feet span and 150 high. Below Trevor it winds first south-east, and then north-east and north to Chester, which city it nearly encircles. At Chester (q.v.) it is 100 yards broad, and thence runs alongside marshes in an artificial tidal canal 7 miles long, which should admit ships of 600 tons, but which in the autumn of 1888 was reported to be rapidly silting up. Near Connah's Quay, between Chester and Flint, where its width is 160 yards, it is crossed by the great railway swing-bridge, whose first cylinder was laid by Mr Gladstone on 16th August 1887. The Dee ends in the Irish Sea, in a tidal estuary 13 miles long and 3 to 6 broad, and forming at high-water a noble arm of the sea; but at low-water a dreary waste of sand and ooze (Kingsley's 'sands of Dee'), with the river flowing through it in a narrow stream. Its whole course is 90 miles long, and its chief tributaries are the Treveryn, Alwen, Ceirog, Clyweddog, and Alyn. Canals connect the Dee with the rivers of central England. The ancient Britons held its waters sacred; Milton speaks of its 'wizard stream,' and Spenser of the
Dee, which Britons long ygone
Did call divine, that doth by Chester tend