s overflow at A and B, and
wet the surface from A to O, and from B to O. O D is a drain four
or five feet deep, and having an adequate outlet; D Z a bore-hole.
The water in the gravel rises from Z to D, and is lowered to the
level D _m_ and D _n_. Of course it ceases to flow over at A and B.
If Elkington's heart had failed him when he reached X, he would
have done no good. All his success depends on his reaching Z,
however deep it may lie. Elkington was a discoverer. We do not at
all believe that his discoveries hinged on the accident that the
shepherd walked across the field with a crow-bar in his hand. When
he forced down that crow-bar, he had more in his head than was ever
dreamed of in Johnstone's philosophy. Such accidents do not happen
to ordinary men. Elkington's subsequent use of his discovery, in
which no one has yet excelled him, warrants our supposition that
the discovery was not accidental. He was not one of those prophets
who are without honor in their own country: he created an immense
sensation, and received a parliamentary grant of one thousand
pounds. One writer compares his auger to Moses' rod, and Arthur
Young speculates, whether though worthy to be rewarded by millers
on one side of the hill for increasing their stream, he was not
liable to an action by those on the other for diminishing theirs."

Johnstone sums up this system as follows:

"Draining according to Elkington's principles depends chiefly upon
three things:

"1. Upon discovering the main spring, or source of the evil.

"2. Upon taking the subterraneous bearings: and,

"3dly. By making use of the auger to reach and _tap_ the springs,
when the depth of the drain is not sufficient for that purpose.

"The first thing, therefore, to be observed is, by examining the
adjoining high grounds, to discover what strata they are composed
of; and then to ascertain, as nearly as possible, the inclination
of these strata, and their connection with the ground to be
drained, and thereby to judge at what place the level of the spring
comes nearest to where the water can be cut off, and most readily
discharged. The surest way of ascertaining the lay, or inclination,
of the different strata, is, by examining the bed of the nearest
streams, and the edges of the banks that are cut thr