245 
ADDENDUM. 
In Thompson's Collections for a Topographicai and Historical 
Account of Boston," 1820, pages 292-300, is given copy of a letter 
from John Farey, dated February 24th, 1808, addressed to Sir Joseph 
Banks, which contains an interesting reference to Smith, as under : — 
" That the boring at Boston, or rather the sinking which 1 
should recommend, if persevered in would reach this limestone, 
and supply a most plentiful spring of excellent water, I cannot 
have the least doubt ; and I am happy in being able to refer to 
a case in Buckinghamshire, which though so distant, is exactly 
in point. Early in the spring of 1802, when my friend Mr. Bevan, 
the engineer and myself, w^ere receiving practical instructions 
from Mr. William Smith relative to his discoveries on the strati- 
fication, in a tour undertaken for that purpose, we accidentally 
met \vith the Eeverend Mr. Le Mesurer, Rector of Newton-Long- 
ville near Fenny-Stratford, who related his having undertook 
to sink a well, at his parsonage house, within a mile or two of 
which, no good and plentiful springs of water were known, but 
finding clay only at the depth of more than 100 feet, was about 
to abandon the design ; Mr. Smith, on looking into his map of 
the strata, pointed out to us, that Newton-Longville stood upon 
some part of the clunch clay strata, and that the Bedford lime- 
stone appeared in the Ouse river below Buckingham, distant 
about eight miles in a north-west direction, and he assured Mr. L. 
that if he would but persevere, to which no serious obstacles 
would present themselves, because all his sinkings would be in 
dry clay, he would certainly reach this lime stone, and have 
plenty of good water, rising very near to the surface ; Mr. L. 
accordingly did persevere in sinking and bricking his well, and 
at 235 feet beneath the surface (the first 80 feet of which were 
in alluvial clay with chalk and flints, etc., similar exactly to what 
I have uniformly found on your estate at Revesby, and in the 
bottoms of many of your fen drains) the upper lime stone rock, 
(8 feet thick) was reached and found to be so closely enveloped 
in strong blue clay, as to produce not more than 9 feet of water 
in the well in the course of a night ; from hence, an augur hole 
was bored in blue clay, for some distance, to the second limestone 
