LORD KEEPER NORTH AT SEATON DELAVAL 293 



already." And so fell to discoursing of these bags of 

 ■water and the methods to clear them, as if the case had 

 been another's and not his own. He said his only 

 apprehension was that the water might come from the 

 sea; and "then" said he "the whole colliery is utterly 

 lost: else, with charge, it will be recovered." Whereupon 

 he sent for a bottle of the water, and finding it not saline 

 as from the sea was well satisfied. Afterwards we enquired 

 if the water was conquered, and we were told it proved 

 not so bad as he expected. For it seems that although 

 £1,700 was spent upon engines, and they could not sink 

 it an inch, yet, £600 more emptied it ; so that it had no 

 more than the ordinary springs ; and, in about six weeks, 

 he raised coal again. He said that chain pumps were the 

 best engines, for they draw constant and even ; but they 

 can have but two stories of them, the second being with 

 an axle-tree of seven or eight fathom ; and the deepest 

 story is wrought by buckets and a wheel and ropes with 

 the force at the top. 



[From the " Lives of the Norths," by Dr Jessop, Vol. i., Sections 

 202, 203.] 



