1803.] On Draining and Watering. 24%

As the strata, between which the water descends in form- ing these springs, have generally the same inclination as the surface of the hill, or nearly so; it follows, that the holes should be bored, and the ditch cut, not vertically downwards, as is tlle common practice, but perpendicular to the surface of the mountains; as by that means the second stratum will sooner be arrived at.

But if on cutting a ditch five or six feet along the bottom of the hill perpendicular to the rising plain, which forms the side of it, the upper stratum be not cut through; and in con- sequence no water oozes into the bottom of the ditch; it is then proper to bore other holes at the bottom of this ditch some yards deeper, or till water rises up through them inta the ditch, if it can beso discovered. Where this succeeds, many holes should be bored, and the water received into the ditches, and conducted into the adjacent river; forthe water will then rise into the bottom of this ditch six feet below the wet surface of the valley, and thus flow away, rather than rise up from the lower wall-springs, or apertures of the stratum, through the incumbent soil to the surface of the valley, whicly isso many feet higher. This well understood is the great se- cret for draining those grounds, where the springs can not be cut intosiimply by a ditch.

This method has been some years practised with success by Mr. Elkington, but was previously used and explained by Mr. Anderson, as he asserts in his introduction to Vol. IIL. of his Essays on Agriculture, who sunk a hole into the earth at the bottom ofa ditch in the year 1764, and the water rose six feet above the surface of the ground, and has continued to flow with Jess violence ever since that time.

It should here be noticed, that where the water rises with great force through holes thus bored into a deep stratum, it is liable to bring up with it much sand, so as sometimes to ob- struct its passage; which sand inthis case must frequently bé removed tor a few days by the reapplication of the auger. Of this a remarkable instance is published in a late volume of the Phil. Trans. by Mr. Vulliamy, who sunk a well 236 feet deep, and four feet wide; and, on then boring a few feet lower with a fivecinch borer, so much sand arose with a vio-= lent stream of water, as to fil] up the whole well; which was repeatedly cleared away by buckets in its fluid state, and at Jast the water ran over the surface to the amount of forty-six gallons in a minute. es

The manner of making these ditches narrower, as they de scend, by spades of an adapted breadth; and of making the Jowest part narrower than.any other part, so that the shoulders or edges of it may support stones, or faggots, to cover the whole at a small expence without obstructing the currents