98 A FEW SCIENTIFIC NOTES, ETC. 



cattle drinking and evaporation, etc., it always looked clear and 

 fresh in the centre. The depth was from four to six feet. In 

 erratic heavy showers during the last six months, three of the 

 higher holes were again filled with surface water and still hold 

 their supply, but the holes below the brackish water-hole have 

 continued dry. 



Being desirous of finding water for irrigation, we sunk 

 through three feet of marly clay at the botton of the first dried-up 

 water-hole. We then came upon a deposit of leaves and general 

 vegetable matter some six feet thick, gradually thinning to the 

 contour much beyond present dimensions. There is a slight 

 mixture of sand, but not sufficient to prevent the mass being a 

 black carbonized substance of vegetable nidus. I need not say 

 that the deposit works up well for vegetable manure, which we 

 are appyling to the fruit trees. It is not a true peat, lacking of 

 course the sphagnum mosses, and not being formed in bogs 

 but in a water-hole, evidently the accumulation of years, until 

 a sudden high flow washed down a quantity of sand and clay 

 to form a thick bed over it. 



After clearing this carbonized deposit away we came upon a 

 basis of marly sandy rocks, soft and friable and alternating 

 with inferior and coloured pipeclays, also mixed with sand. 

 Sinking eight feet through these beds we got an abundance of 

 fresh water. The water is soft and tastes slightly of soda, and 

 is evidently fron an entirely different drainage to that of the 

 water in the water-hole higher up, and which as I said was 

 slightly but decidedly brackish. 



On the side of the hole now dug out twelve feet deep (not 

 reckoning the eight feet bore for water), was a large dead tree- 

 stump its roots spreading into the soil, being thus exposed. 

 In seeking to undermine this stump with a pick a nest of eels 

 was disturbed. They were coiled in interlacing companionship 

 into a solid ball evidently to mutual moisture and sustained 

 vitality. There were four specimens about eighteen inches each 

 in length, and they had instinctively thus located themselves 

 under a lacing of roots, at once expedient for protection against 

 the hardening humus, and probably supplying a degree of air 

 and moisture as well as a rude domicile. 



I must now ask you to visit Hemmant. The Doughboy 

 Creek, an estuarine salt creek, runs by the side of Mr. Carlisle's 

 vineyard ; but there, as elsewhere, fresh water is lacking. In 

 his difficulty the owner commenced to dig a hole, or rather to 



