DRAINAGE CANAL 



1851 



DRAMA 



Generally, the main drain will follow the prin- 

 cipal hollows in the field, the depressions 

 through which rain water runs off. The branch 

 drains enter the main drain at right angles, 

 and are placed from twenty feet apart in wet 

 clay to eight feet apart in sand, and from two 

 and a half to five feet below the surface. 

 Drains near the surface must be placed closer 

 together than deeper ones. The tiles in com- 

 mon use vary from three to eight inches in 

 inside diameter, and are laid with their ends 

 close together but not sealed, in order that 

 water, but no dirt, may find its way in. They 

 should slope at least three inches in a hun- 

 dred feet. Two branch drains must not enter 

 the main opposite each other, and the mouth 

 of the main drain, if it discharges into a stream, 

 must be above the highest level of the stream 

 water. 



Reclaiming Low Lands. Some of the best 

 farming land in the world is that which, but 

 for artificial drainage, would be under water. 

 Everyone knows the story of the brave Hol- 

 landers' centuries-long struggle with the sea, 

 but the Dutch polders form only a small part 

 of the immense domain which men have added 

 to the dry land which nature gave them. The 

 fen lands of the east coast of England were 

 partially drained in Roman days, and in mod- 

 ern times thousands of acres more have been 

 reclaimed. On the continent of Europe the 

 most important drainage project is in the Po 

 Valley in Italy, where a thousand square miles 

 of marsh have disappeared. The delta of the 

 Nile, too, is being drained, and in America 

 6,000 square miles of the once impenetrable 

 Everglades of Florida are being transformed 

 into fertile farms. See EVERGLADES. C.H.H. 



DRAINAGE CANAL. See CHICAGO DRAIN- 

 AGE CANAL. 



DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS (about 1540-1596), an 

 English navigator and adventurer, the first 





SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 



Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. To 

 this man of determination and energy was also 

 largely due another honor, that of the defeat 

 of Spain's "In- 

 vincible Ar- 

 mada," which 

 gained for Eng- 

 land command of 

 the ocean (see 

 ARM ADA). He 

 was born in Dev- 

 onshire and early 

 in life served as a 

 sailor in a coast- 

 ing vessel. In 

 1567, on Sir John 

 Hawkins' last ex- 

 pedition against the Spaniards, in which he 

 invested heavily, he lost most of his posses- 

 sions. To avenge this defeat and loss, after 

 two preliminary voyages to the West Indies, 

 he set out in 1572 against Spain with three 

 ships and seventy-three men. With this small 

 force he captured a Spanish town and large 

 treasure on the Isthmus of Panama, thereby 

 earning the name of "the Dragon" from the 

 Spaniards. 



Five years later, with four vessels, he started 

 on his most famous voyage, during which the 

 coasts of Chile and Peru were plundered, sev- 

 eral ports sacked and a Spanish galleon laden 

 with silver, gold and jewels captured. After 

 many hazardous experiences, only his own ves- 

 sel, the Pelican, renamed the Golden Hind, was 

 left to complete in three years the then mar- 

 velous feat of going around the world. On 

 November 3, 1580, he anchored in Plymouth 

 harbor, having completed a voyage that now 

 takes but six weeks. The Golden Hind was 

 long preserved, but only a chair made from its 

 timber, one of the relics of Oxford University, 

 now remains. 



r RAMA, drah'ma, a term derived 



from a Greek word meaning action, is applied 

 to that form of literary composition which is 

 intended to be presented upon a stage by actors 



who impersonate characters in the develop- 

 ment of a story. In its written form a drama 

 or play consists of the speeches of the char- 

 acters, grouped into divisions and subdivisions 



