JUNE 171 



passing surface flush down the channel. Chalk streams 

 flow from sources deep in the bosom of the downs, 

 where the rain and melted snow of winter are stored up, 

 to be discharged evenly and slowly through the summer. 

 It is this that gives a chalk stream valley its peculiar 

 charm the contrast of a brimming channel bordered 

 with vigorous growth and unflagging verdure amid the 

 baked and withered uplands on either hand. A chalk 

 stream generally runs brink-high throughout the sum- 

 mer heats ; but this year, be the summer what it may, 

 there can be no generous gush over waving tangle of 

 water plants ; only, in many streams, an oily and 

 scanty meander among mounds of weed and tracts of 

 unlovely mud. The north-country scheme of hydrau- 

 lics is different. Only yesterday, a ' snell ' south-easter 

 drove heavy rain- clouds in from the North Sea, and the 

 burden they discharged upon the Grampians is hurry- 

 ing eastward again to-day under the keel of my boat 

 as I sit ' harling ' on the Tay. But feeding a Hampshire 

 chalk stream not one-hundredth part of the Tay in 

 volume is a far more deliberate process. The supplies 

 of Itchen and Test have to be laid down, like wine, long 

 before they may be enjoyed ; it is the shortage during 

 the last two winters which makes the outlook so serious 

 for the present season. 



In some streams, indeed, the evil is of a more 

 permanent nature. Men multiply so fast that they are 

 drinking up all the water within reach. The Hertford- 

 shire Lea and the Surrey Tillingbourne have been per- 

 manently diminished in volume by the persistent tapping 



