The Small Rain, Low-Lands : A Few Questions

[rj]

sk/pm
> >
> > There are the "bank run" in the dump ("On the top of the pinnacle of bank
> > run stood  a human figure..."). What does it mean? Only "bank run" I found
> > is financial term...
> 
> "Bank run" is the gravel that's left after the dirt has been
> washed away by naturally flowing water. Also called bank gravel. Found
> around banks of streams.

Maybe Mr P has misused the phrase then because this dump's "roughly
square, half a mile on each side, sunk fifty feet below the streets of
the sprawling housing development which surrounded it."(*SL*64) And a
couple of pages later the caretaker, Bolingbroke, leads Dennis and Pig
up out of the spiral again to get a mattress each: "up a slope, around a
tall tower of bank run" and then on past all the refrigerators,
bicycles, washing machines &c. I've got a picture of it in my head, but
it's much taller than a riverbank would be ("tower", "pinnacle"); just a
high shelf of debris.

best