American hands; but cautious and slow operations are by no means to
their taste.

Dickens says, that on railways and coaches, wherever in England they
say, "All right," the Americans use, instead, the phrase, "Go ahead." In
tile-drainage, the motto, "All right," will be found far more safe than
the motto, "Go ahead."

Instances are given in England of drains laid with handmade tiles, which
have operated well for thirty years, and have not yet failed.

Mr. Parkes informs us: "That, about 1804, pipe-tiles made tapering, with
one end entering the other, and two inches in the smallest point, were
laid down in the park now possessed by Sir Thomas Whichcote, Aswarby,
Lincolnshire, and that they still act well."

Stephens gives the following instance of the durability of bricks used
in draining:

"Of the durability of common brick, when used in drains, there is a
remarkable instance mentioned by Mr. George Guthrie, factor to the
Earl of Stair or Calhoun, Wigtonshire. In the execution of modern
draining on that estate, some brick-drains, on being intersected,
emitted water very freely. According to documents which refer to
these drains, it appears that they had been formed by the
celebrated Marshal, Earl Stair, _upwards of a hundred years ago_.
They were found between the vegetable mould and the clay upon which
it rested, between the 'wet and the dry,' as the country phrase has
it, and about thirty-one inches below the surface. They presented
two forms--one consisting of two bricks set asunder on edge, and
the other two laid lengthways across them, leaving between them an
opening of four inches square for water, but having no soles. The
bricks had not sunk in the least through the sandy clay bottom upon
which they rested, as they were three inches broad. The other form
was of two bricks laid side by side, as a sole, with two others
built or laid on each other, at both sides, upon the solid ground,
and covered with flat stones, the building being packed on each
side of the drain with broken bricks."

In our chapter upon the "Obstruction of Drains," the various causes
which operate against the permanency of drains, are more fully
considered.

CHAPTER VII.

DIRECTION, DISTANCE, AND DEPTH OF DRAINS.

DIRECTION OF DRAINS.--Whence comes the Water?--Inclination of
Strata.--Drains across the Slope let Water out as w