A DROUGHT-TIME DIVINER. 217 



neighbourhood, were doing much the same. Through 

 twenty yards of best brick clay, through soft chalk, quali 

 fied by flints, through rock chalk, hard as a road, through 

 soft chalk again the broad chisel-scoop of the borer 

 penetrated, and was now and again drawn up and re 

 moved to make place for the &quot; sucker/ which brought 

 up a funnelful of chalky rubbish. Then, as nicely fore 

 told, at exactly 153 feet, the raised rod was seen to be 

 wet. Water had been reached. The divining-rod, 

 geology, and local experience were justified. So were 

 the rough and simple tools of the trade ; so was the 

 master craftsman, a man of wide and various knowledge. 

 The hole was pierced to yet another 70 feet, till the point 

 of either saturation or bubbling springs was reached and 

 the end of the boring-blade was almost at the level of 

 the stream in the valley. 



The stream, the rather idle, unenergetic, but agreeable 

 river Lea, still flows unimpeded except where the aban 

 doned mill only lets water through the bye-pass. The 

 valley is still lush, the codlins-and-cream in flower, the 

 moorhen and dabchick clucking and clacking happily 

 not, as an Essex correspondent reports, &quot; wandering dis 

 consolately in search of water.&quot; The wolds and fens 

 of wide Lincolnshire, the clay lands of little Huntingdon 

 and Rutland, the lowlands of Norfolk and Cambridge, 

 the rocky hills of Wales, may have lost their partial 

 water ; the wells may have shrunk as completely as the 

 puddled ponds, and the streams shortened ; but the 

 underground lakes in the chalk on the slopes of the 

 Chilterns remain as full as the sea itself. 



Aloof from our mutations and unrest. 



These little droughts mean nothing to them. The 

 proud well-borer will promise to make good to you 



