XXXIV INTRODUCTION.

tains, it may frequently be much cheaper to carry off fuperfluous water from mines, by penetrating downwards, than by driving a horizontal level to the furface of the ground, which is in many cafes attended with a ruinous expéence. Thefe corol- laries are indeed fo obvious, when the principle is once explained, that it mut appear aftonifh- ing to any confiderate mind they have not been made, and very generally applied in practical cafes, long before the prefent period; and I here {pecify them, merely to direét the attention of men toan object from which much praétical good may be derived, in a variety of cafes, which it would be tirefome in me here to enumerate.

I have farther to add on this head, that there is one variety of wet ground which had totally efcaped my notice in that effay, and which has not, that I know of, been treated of by any writer on agriculture; though it is, perhaps, more uni- verfally hurtful to the farmer, than any other kind of wet land whatever. This I have occafion particularly to explain, in the fecond effay of the prefent work, on the improvement of wafte lands,

From the fats that were{tated in the commit- tee of the board of agriculture, in favour of Mr. Elkington’s mode of draining, as publithed in

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