its full powers in exhaling superfluous
moisture.

In this favoured spot, the inhabitants enjoy four of the greatest
benefits that can attend human existence; air more pure than in many
other places; water of an excellent quality; the genial influence of
the sun; and a situation not in the least subject to damps.

The adjacent lands are of an inferior quality, but by cultivation they
are rendered tolerably productive; those immediately surrounding the
town, are almost in every direction converted into gardens, which are
in general rented from one to two guineas per year, and without a
doubt are very conducive to the health of the inhabitants.

The waste lands about the town being inclosed in the year 1800 were
found to contain two hundred and eighty nine acres, which land now
lets from thirty to fifty shillings per acre.

The only stream of water that flows to this town is a small rivulet,
denominated the river Rea, which takes its rise upon Rubery Hill, near
one mile north of Bromsgrove Lickey, about eight miles distant, from
whence there being a considerable descent, numerous reservoirs have
been made, which enables the stream, within that short space, to
drive ten mills, exclusive of two within the town; and what is very
remarkable, some person has erected a windmill very near its banks,
where the ground is not in the least elevated. This curiosity of a
windmill being erected in a valley, is very visible soon after you
have passed the buildings on the road to Bromsgrove.

Notwithstanding there is only one stream of water, the streets are so
intersected by canals, that there is only one entrance into the town
without coming over a bridge, and that is from Worcester.

At the top of Digbeth, very near the church-yard of St. Martin's,
there is a never-failing spring of pure soft water, wherein is affixed
what is called the cock pump; which being free to all the inhabitants,
it is a very common thing to see from twelve to twenty people, each of
them with a pair of large tin buckets, waiting for their turn to fill
them, and this in succession through the whole day. From this very
powerful spring there is a continual stream that runs through the
cellars, on each side of the street, and several of the inhabitants
have therein affixed pumps, from which innumerable water carts are
filled every hour of the day; notwithstanding which, during the
greatest heats and droughts, there is always a super-abundance of that
neces