- 
25 
“ 
wet (because heat and moisture are the greater disposers to putrefaction) they 
prove also malignant, and for the most part pestilential. And the reason why 
the using [? rising] of this bourn doth not always presage the plague, is 
because all wet years do not presage hot.* 
The greater part of the valleys of the Chalk country are now 
quite dry, and water is got by sinking wells through the gravels at 
the bottoms of their valleys. In the extreme west of Sussex there 
are some valleys in which, after wet seasons, water now runs; such 
are in that neighbourhood called ‘* Levants.’’ Similar intermittent 
streams are frequently found in other chalk districts. One of the 
best known is that which occasionally runs, in the valley between 
Merstham and Croydon; this is called the ‘‘Bourn.’. In Kent 
such streams are called ‘“‘ Bourns”’ or ** Nailbourns;” in Wiltshire 
and Dorsetshire they are generally called ‘*‘ Winterbourns;” in 
Yorkshire they are known as “‘ Gypsies” or ‘ Gipsies.” These 
streams now only run after very wet weather. | 
The Croydon Bourne only flows as a surface stream after the 
rain of the preceding twelve months has exceeded thirty inches. 
CROYDON’ WELLS. 
WELL FoR THE LocaL Boarp or HEALTH. 
Sunk and communicated by Messrs, T. Doewra (some particulars added 
from a MS. section in the Engineer's Office, Metropolitan Board of Works). 
Yields 1,500,000 gallons a day. 
FEET. 
Made ground sie i xh a ee 
Rough loamy gravel ... af same 
[Valley Drift, Sand set Le = oe 3 
11 ft.] Finer loamy gravel ... sha wo OF 
Coarse gravel as ae oat el 
( Hard chalk witn large flints ... fore Ag, 
Chalk a 24 
Chalk, 62 feet. + Hard crust (the greatest supply of water 
comes from this ae 
\Chalk UI e Ra 
Total’ ..: ene f/ 
New WE tt For tHe Locat Boarp or HEALTH, 1864. 
56 fect from the older well. 
Sunk and communicated by Messrs. T. Doewra and Son. 
Water rose to a height of 113 feet below the surface. 
Made ground a de —- 5h 
Black gravel aes ee me 3 
rit cee 
Yellow... os ix es 
* J. Childrey, “ Britannia Baconica, or the Natural Rarities of England, Scotland, 
and Ireland, p. 55. 1660. 
+ W. Topley, ‘‘On the Relation of Parish Boundaries, &c., &c.” Journ. Anthro- 
pological Institute, vol. iii., p. 45. 
