Farming of LincoJnsldre. 



Til 



11 to 13 feet thick, upon the solid blue Oxford or Kimmeridge 

 clay, here dipping under the alluvium of the fens. The rain 

 which sinks into the hill descends upon the sloping surface of 

 the clay, working its way gradually through the permeable 

 stratum above it, and standing in that stratum at a higher or 

 lower level according to the wetness or dryness of the season. 

 The hill extends for several miles, with a similar order of strata, 

 the water sinking to the fen catch- water drain. ^ 



Upon the opposite side of the Witham fens the drift is found 

 in the shape of li^rht sand and gravel, overspreading more than 

 half the surface of the Oxford clay. In Blankney parish it is a 

 black hungry gravel, but varies to light siliceous sand and gravel. 

 At Ewerby it spreads down into the fen, being a red sand. 

 Deposits of calcareous gravel occur in the valley at Edenham 

 and other places near Bourn, resting on the edge of either the 

 oolite or Oxford clay ; and at Baston and Deeping there is an 

 -extensive bed of gravel having a sandy surface-soil, which v.'idens 

 out, dividing the fens from the oolite limestone hills. The drift 

 waters, which appear to have been precipitated over this county 

 from the east or north-east, found an obstacle to their progress in 

 the oolite ridge; and at Lincoln they seem to have torn a 

 passage through this barrier, depositing in the lias vallev beyond 

 a mingled mass of gravel and sand. At Doddmgton, Eagle, 

 &c., the soil is a gravelly loam ; and southward are found large 

 tracts of moorland upon these barren deposits of drift. An 

 extensive bed of calcareous gravel amongst a yellowish red sand 

 is the subsoil north-east of Sleaford, towards Ruskington, Dor- 

 rington, 6cc., the surface being a good loam, sometimes of con- 

 siderable depth, and sometimes with the sandy subsoil near to 

 the top. From Sleaford to Wilsford the soil is sandy, upon a 

 deep deposit of light-yellow gravel. The same stratum on the 

 surface changing more to a red sand, seems to turn southward 

 toward Grantham, on the east side of the Witham, dividing the 

 red oolite soil from the lias clay, and is doubtless of a similar 

 nature and origin to the gravel with loamy covering found under 

 the cliff northward of Lincoln. At Grantham the soil is a strong 

 reddish brown clay, slippery with wet, resting at 2 or 3 feet 

 depth on a whitish and yellow gravel mingled with a yellowish 

 earthy sand, — similar, indeed, to that in the neighbourhood of 

 Sleaford. Along the ^Vitham valley, between Grantham and 



* Advantage has been taken of this abundant water for a useful purpose: on the 

 ■other side of this hill, at Miningsby, a reservoir of about 20 acres area has been coc- 

 structed, which, by means of an aqueduct of iron pipes, supplies the town of Boston 

 with water. This town had. fruitlessly sunk bores through the subjacent alluvium and 

 Oxford clay in search of the Oolite rock, and this reservoir, elevated about 125 feet 

 above Boston, now sends beautiful fresh water tiirough piping (laid alongside the 

 Spilsby turnpike road) upwards of thirteen miles in length. 



