84 



AGRICULTURE. 



D Z a borehole. The water in the gravel rises from Z to D, 

 'and is lowered to the level D m and D n. Of course it ceases 



to flow over at A and B. If Elkington's heart had failed 

 him when he reached #, he would have done no good. All 

 his success depends on his reaching Z, however deep it may 

 lie. Elkington was a discoverer. We do not at all believe 

 that his discoveries hinged on the accident that the shepherd 

 walked across the field with a crow-bar in his hand. When 

 he forced down that crow-bar, he had more in his head than 

 was ever dreamed of in Johnstone's philosophy. Such 

 accidents do not happen to ordinary men. Elkington's 

 subsequent use of his discovery, in which no one has yet 

 excelled him, warrants our supposition that the discovery 

 was not accidental. He was not one of those prophets who 

 are without honour in their own country; he created an 

 immense sensation, and received a parliamentary grant of 

 one thousand pounds. One writer compares his augur to 

 Moses' rod, and Arthur Young speculates, whether, though 

 worthy to be rewarded by millers on one side of the hill 

 for increasing their stream, he was not liable to an action 

 by those on the other for diminishing theirs. He appears 

 to have generally used stones as a conduit, but occasionally 

 a sort of drain-brick, the pattern of which came from 

 France. The duty was not then taken off such materials, 

 and formed a sore impediment to their use and improve- 

 ment. 



