83 
If made at all, at least if made properly, it could only be 
by the combined efforts and capital of a society of gen- 
tlemen deeply interested in agriculture, such as he had 
then the honour of addressing. 
Before he sat down (lest a false impression should 
have been produced, by what he had first stated,) he 
hoped he might be permitted to allude to one or two 
instances which had lately fallen under his observation, 
and which proved how important it was to the agricul- 
turist to have a knowledge of the structure of his 
country. In several parts of the Bedford level, and the 
fen lands to the north of it, very expensive sinkings 
had been undertaken, in the hope of procuring water, 
but they had all failed. Now any geologist, (though he 
might not have blamed the experiment,) would have 
anticipated the result. For the Oxford clay forms the 
substratum of all that flat region, and is of such enor- 
mous thickness that it has never yet been pierced 
through by any sinking, far removed from the beds 
which crop out from under its lower surface. On the 
contrary, the success of the Artesian wells of Essex, (of 
inestimable value to the farmer when the surface water 
fails, as it does in very dry seasons,) would have been 
anticipated by any geologist, before a single boring rod 
had pierced the London clay. Examples like these 
show that a knowledge of the stratification of his dis- 
trict may direct a farmer to the useful employment of 
his capital, or save him from the improvident waste 
of it. 
If a knowledge of geology was of value in teaching 
the best methods of bringing water to the surface, it 
was also of obvious value in all great questions of 
droning. Top water might sometimes be carried off by 
