A 'PRACTICAL' BEGINNING. 15 



than the bottom, until that uncompromising test of 

 accurate levels, the water, makes its appearance : all 

 on a sudden the whole scene is changed, the eye-ac- 

 credited level vanishes as if some earthquake had 

 taken place : here there is a gravelly Scour along 

 which the stream rushes in a thousand little angry- 

 looking ripples ; there it hangs and looks as dull and 

 heavy as if it had given up running at all, as a useless 

 waste of energy; in another place a few dead leaves 

 or sticks, or a morsel of soil broken from the side, 

 dams back the water for a considerable distance, occa- 

 sioning a deposit of soil along the whole reach, greater 

 in proportion to the quantity and the muddiness of 

 the water detained. All this shows the paramount 

 importance of perfect evenness in the bed on which 

 the tiles are laid. The worst-laid tile is the measure 

 of the goodness and permanence of the whole drain, 

 just as the weakest link of a chain is the measure of 

 its strength. 



But this of course was all theory, and theory of 

 course was all nonsense : my practical head-drainer 

 was quite of a different way of thinking, as his modus 

 operandi will exhibit. The morning after he had 

 commenced operations I found him hrird at work 

 cutting a drain, about eighteen inches deep, laying 



