WARPING. 59 



ever, in its occasional inundations, any portion of its waters is 

 arrested and held stagnant, a marked increase of productiveness is 

 sure to follow. The very superior richness of the meadows on the 

 Deerfield River, a small tributary of the Connecticut, is doubt 

 less attributable to the fact that, when the Connecticut is at its 

 height of flood, the waters of the Deerfield are driven back and 

 held for a time stationary, when they copiously deposit the en 

 riching matters which they have gathered from the higher lands, 

 and hold in suspension. The great river, in its swift passage 

 over the lands, leaves little behind it ; but it has occurred to me 

 that, when capital has become more abundant, and the spirit of 

 improvement more bold and active, there may be many situa 

 tions on the river where, at not an exorbitant expense of em 

 bankment, advantage may be taken of the flood to arrest some 

 portion of the waters, and hold them fast until they have dropped 

 their wealth upon the land. In most cases, probably, the great 

 hinderance to such improvements would be the vast masses of 

 ice which come down in the spring floods, defying almost every 

 barrier, and sweeping every thing before them in their progress. 

 Many of the rivers in England, which I have visited, are ex 

 tremely discolored and turbid. The amount of cultivated land 

 may be a principal cause of it. All the rivers which enter into 

 the Humber, for I have crossed them all, the Avon, near Bris 

 tol, the Severn, at Gloucester, the Usk, near Newport, Monmouth 

 shire, are all copiously charged with mud in suspension. The Ex, 

 in Devonshire, the Mersey, and the Clyde, are very much of the 

 same character. The Thames is a floating mass of impurity and 

 filth. In order, upon the present system of warping, to effect an 

 improvement, it is necessary that the land to be warped should 

 be lower than the tide by which it is to be covered. But it 

 does not appear to me irrational, or premature, to look forward to 

 the time when this difficulty shall be obviated. As I shall pres 

 ently show, two immense steam-engines, one of sixty, and one 

 of eighty horse power, which I had the pleasure of seeing, and 

 of admiring their mode of operation, clear thousands of acres of 

 land (at a moderate expense, compared with the good achieved) 

 of the drainage water. Why, by the same mighty power, which 

 is fast effecting immense changes in all the departments of labor, 

 may not this mass of turbid water be thrown upon lands higher 

 than the highest tides, and there held fast until it lets go the 



