DRAINAGE. 



497 



ful extent. Then there are the numerous other burrowers, such 

 as rabbits, mice, and rats, which are common everywhere, 

 besides the less plentiful foxes, badgers, and various burrowing 

 birds, all of which assist more or less in the drainage of the 

 earth. 



Even bees and wasps of different kinds assist in this work, 

 the hardest soil yielding to their small, though powerful, jaws 

 and feet, and so being made, if only temporarily, able to carry 

 off the superabundant moisture. 



ONE of the most ingenious modes of Drainage was that which 

 was invented by Watts, and was avowedly based on Nature. 

 He had engaged himself to carry a drain tube through, or 

 rather over, an extremely irregular bed of a river, where the 

 pipes must accommodate themselves to existing conditions. 



TAIL OF LOBSTER. 



FLEXIBLE WATER MAIN. 



The modern system of pipes not having been brought into 

 existence, Watts had to adapt himself to circumstances, and 

 did so by making his pipe on the model of a Lobster's tail, as 

 shown in the illustration. 



We have already seen how the same object has been -utilised 

 in warfare as a pattern for armour, but it does seem rather 

 strange that it should be employed in the tranquil arts of peace. 



ANOTHER method of removing superfluous water ie by the 

 TURBINE PUMP, by which the water, instead of being cast up 

 in successive jets, was flung out in a continuous torrent. Some 

 of my readers may remember the sensation which was created 

 at the first Exhibition of 1852 by the then extraordinary 

 powers of the Turbine Pump. 



Yet this is, after all, nothing but an imperfect copy of the 

 now celebrated being to which human beings have been sup- 

 posed to owe their origin, namely > the Ascidian, popularly 



K K 



