FOR COLONISTS AND EMIGRANTS. 
129 
them, is to bank out a certain portion of it, so 
that it can be cleared out. This must be done 
by beginning to excavate in dry ground, close 
to the swamp, and wheeling on the dry stuff 
to the bog, quagmire, or swamp. Suppose 
that the swamp is large, perhaps almost with- 
out a limit, and you find even a stream or a 
river running through its centre, though you 
cannot reach it over this impassable swamp ; 
in this case, by banking a portion so as to 
shut out the water while the works are going 
on, you may be able to form a complete reser- 
voir of pure water close to the dry land. 
The earth that is taken out of the excavation 
may be wheeled to the edge of the swamp, 
and then emptied, and when it is carried far 
enough inwards, turned at right angles, and 
again brought to the dry land. By con- 
tinually heaping on the soil, it will become a 
safe, hard and solid bank. The excavation 
may be formed first on dry land, and then 
you may work inwards until you reach the 
banks you have made. If you find any want 
of firmness in the bank as you proceed to 
make it, ram the soil well down as it is put 
in. The soft boggy soil taken out of the 
swamp, which is, in fact, the bed of the river 
in the wet season, but rank mud and vegetable 
matter in dry weather, must be wheeled away, 
where it may dry or rot as the case may be. 
It is not unfrequently the case, that a river in 
the dry weather is not wider than some of cur 
English brooks, but that it has a mile on each 
side, or more, of swamp covered with rushes, 
forbidding all approach to the stream, except 
that of cattle, at some periods of the year ; 
but when it is in its worst state, animals would 
sink in the mud and be lost. It is then that 
we require an excavation ; and while it is 
going on, it often requires a hand or two to 
pump out the water, that the work may be 
done as dry as it i3 practicable. It may be 
said that the whole excavation might be made 
in the dry land ; but independently of the 
waste of room, there is less chance of a sup- 
ply than if the deepest part is in the bed of 
the river, or rather of the swamp. 
The stopping out of any quantity by a 
bank is as simple an operation as possible, he- 
cause it requires only that the earth shall be 
thrown down at the edge, and as wide as it is 
intended to form the bank, travelling on it 
with the fresh supply as far as you mean to 
go, as is done with the waggons on a new- 
made embankment for a railroad ; they are 
pushed to the extremity and there emptied, 
and so it is with a minor embankment to 
stop out water. Whether the portion to be 
banked out be twenty feet or twenty yards 
square, the work is carried on towards the 
stream, but you must be sure to make firm 
work of your bank, which should sink down 
into the mud and slush ; and if there be 
enough of the soil to form it solid, there is 
nothing more permanent. The best time to 
commence making the bank is when the water 
is just drawing off; and as the more you ex- 
cavate the solid ground in a right form, the 
better reservoir you make, so the better supply 
of material there is for the bank, and the 
wider and heavier the bank is, the more 
sound will be the whole affair ; and the larger 
and deeper you make the excavation, whether 
it be rounded or squared next the river, the 
better you will find it in the end, because it 
will provide more water. It requires that the 
slope of the wall towards the river shall be of 
an angle of forty-five degrees, or exactly the 
same as a line drawn from angle to angle of 
an upright square : this is slope enough to 
prevent the earth from falling in, and you 
might make sure of your deeply excavated 
pond being pretty nearly all you want. An 
imaginary section of a swamp and the exca- 
vation made properly would he something like 
the following : — the black mark at No. 4 re- 
presents the middle stream, hardly larger than 
a puddle, the sides for a mile being really 
swamps up to your middle or neck in mud and 
decaying vegetable matter, and nearer to the 
stream even much deeper ; No. 3 shows the 
50. 
bank ; from 0, as far as No. 1 is marked, is 
dug on dry land ; at No. 2 you get into the 
swash, but as the bank keeps out the water 
that is outside there is no fear of digging on, 
because the water within the embankment 
