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fifty years the roads in Scotland were hardly paffable. And while the Swifs cuts his way through the Alps, our mole-hills in the highlands prefent infuperable barriers. The civilization of a country is al ways in exact proportion to the number, and condition, of its high ways. The omiffion of this one law was radical, and obftructed all the others.

"In the burghs a greater degree of civilization must have prevailed than in the country; but the inhabitants of the burghs were few, compared with the general population. Froiffart eftimates the houses in Edinburgh, then the capital, at four thousand; they were fmall wooden cottages, covered with straw; for modern Edinburgh, with its houses of ten or twelve ftories, cannot date higher than Mary's reign, when all the French customs of Scotland really commenced. By a common calculation the inhabi. tants of the capital, in the reign of Robert II. hardly exceeded fixteen thousand.

"For fome unknown cause, James I. prohibited the election of deacons of crafts; perhaps they abufed their power in exciting fedition; perhaps the genuine fpirit of a corporation began to operate in monopoly, and oppreffion. But a warden and council are ordered to regulate prices, the warden to be chofen by the council of the burgh, and not, as the deacons, by the craftsmen themselves. Mafons, carpenters, fmiths, taylors, weavers, are the only trades mentioned in the ftatute. The inftitution of corporations by patent seems unknown in Scotland, till the reign of James IV. the crafts embodied and regulated themselves; and the attention of government was hardly diverted to

them, except to prevent impofition. They would have charged for holidays, and undertaken more work than they could accomplish, while one craftsman would refufe the work neglected by another. The fole in tention of thefe acts seems to have been to break the monopoly.

"James I. has himfelf delineated the manners of the common peo ple, in his poem called Pebles to the Play. This play was probably an annual festival, in honour of the faint to whom the church was dedicated, or on fome other occafion; and fuch wakes are yet known in the north of England. The humour and jollity of the meeting end in tumult and uproar, but difplay a very different character to the gloomy fanaticism of the two fucceeding centuries. From this fingular poem, among other articles of manners, we learn that the women wore kerchiefs and hoods, and tippets; the mufic arofe from the bagpipe; the men fometimes wore hats of birchtwigs interwoven, the hat being any high covering of the head, while the bonnet was flat. A tavern, with fair table linen, and a regular score on the wall, are introduced: the reckoning, twopence halfpenny apiece, is collected in a wooden trencher. The cadger, or packman who carries fith, &c. through the country, on his little horse; the falmon dance, confifting in exertions of high leaping; and other anecdotes of popular manners, diverfify the piece.

"The dress of the common people confifted chiefly of a doublet and cloke, and a kind of short trowfe; the head was covered with a hat of basket-work, or felt, or with a woollen bonnet; while the legs and feet remained bare. Shirts were hardly known even to the

great.

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great. The female drefs was a kerchief or a hood, and a tippet about the neck: the kirtle, or clofe gown, was rarely accompanied either with the wylicot or under petticoat, or with the mantle; and the feet were naked.

"As the ftate of fociety was rather paftoral than agricultural, milk, and its various preparations, formed a chief article of food. Meat boil.

ed with oatmeal, or fifh, fupplied more folemn meals. Bread and ve getables were little used, a circum ftance to which it may perhaps be imputed that the leprofy was not uncommon. The chief fish was the falmon, concerning the capture of which many regulations occur in the acts of parliament, and which alfo formed a grand article in the Scotifh exports."

MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS.

An ACCOUNT of the MEANS employed, to obtain an overflowing WELL; in a LETTER to the RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR JOSEPH BANKS, BARONET, &c, from Mг. BENJAMIN VULLIAMY.

[From the Second Part of the PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS of the ROYAL SOCIETY of LONDON, for the YEAR 1797.]

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" SIR,

"In beginning to fink this well,

PERMIT me, in compliance which has a diameter of four feet,

with your request, to give you a fhort account of the well at Norland House, belonging to Mr. L. Vulliamy; a work of great la. bour and expence, executed entire ly under my direction, and finished in November, 1794.

"Before I began the work, I sonfidered that it would be of infinite advantage, should a spring be found ftrong enough to rife over the furface of the well; and though I thought it very improbable, yet I refolved to take from the beginning the fame precautions in doing the work, as if I had been affured that fuch a fpring would be found. But although this very laborious undertaking has fucceeded beyond my expectation, yet from the knowledge I have acquired in the progrefs of the work, I am of opinion that it will very feldom happen that the water will rife fo high; nor will people, I believe, in general, be fo indefatigable as I have been in Overcoming the various difficulties that did and ever will occur, in bringing fuch a work to perfec

tion.

the land fprings were stopped out in the ufual manner, and the well was funk and fteined to the bottom. When the workmen had got to the depth of 236 feet, the water was judged not to be very far off, and it was not thought fafe to fink any deeper. A double thickness of fteining was made about 6 feet. from the bottom upwards, and a borer of 5 inches diameter was made ufe of. A copper pipe of the fame diameter with the borer was driven down the bore-hole to the depth of 24 feet, at which depth the borer pierced through the rock into the water; and by the manner of its going through, it must probably have broken into a ftratum containing water and fand. At the time the borer burst through, the top of the copper pipe was about three feet above the bottom of the well: a mixture of fand and water inftantly ruflied in through the aperture of the pipe. This happened, about two o'clock in the afternoon, and by twenty minutes past three o'clock the water of the well ftond within 17 feet of the furface. The

water

water rose the first 124 feet in eleven minutes, and the remaining 119 feet in one hour and nine minutes. The next day feveral buckets of water were drawn out, fo as to lower the water four or five feet; and in a fhort time the water again rofe within 17 feet of the furface. A found-line was then let down into the well in order to try its depth. To our great furprife the well was not found by 96 feet fo deep as it had been measured before the water was in it; and the lead brought up a fufficient quantity of fand to explain the reafon of this difference, by fhewing that the water had brought along with it 96 feet of fand into the well. Whether the copper pipe remained full of fand or not, is not eafy to be determined; but I fhould rather be inclined to think it did not.

"After the well had continued in the fame ftate feveral days, the water was drawn out fo as to lower it eight or ten feet; and it did not rife again by about a foot fo high as it had rifen before. At fome days interval water was again drawn out, fo as to lower the water as before; which at each time of drawing rose lefs and lefs, until after fome confiderable time it would rife no more; and the water being then all drawn out, the fand remained perfectly dry and hard. I now began to think the water loft; and, confequently, that all the labour and expence of finking this well, which by this time were pretty confiderable, had been in vain. There remained no alternative but to endeavour to recover it by getting out the fand, or all that had been done would be useless; and although it became a more difficult task than finking a new well might have been, yet I determined to undertake it, because I knew another well might

alfo be liable to be filled with fand in the fame manner that this was. The operation of digging was again neceffarily reforted to, and the fand was drawn up in buckets until about 60 feet of it were drawn out, and confequently, there remained only 36 feet of fand in the well: that being too light to keep the water down, in an inftant it forced again into the well with the same violence it had done before; and the man who was at the bottom getting out the fand, was drawn up almost fuffocated, having been covered all over by a mixture of fand and wa ter. In a fhort time the water refe again within 17 feet of the furface, and then ceased to rife, as before. When the water had ceafed rifing, the founding-line was again let down, and the well was found to contain full as much fand as it did the first time of the water's coming into it.

"Any further attempt towards recovering the water appeared now in vain; and most people would, I believe, have abandoned the undertaking. I again confidered that the labour and the expence would be all loft by fo doing; and I determined without delay to fet about drawing the fand out through the water, by means of an iron box made for that purpose, without giv ing it time to harden as before. The labour attending on this operation was very great, as it was ne ceffary continually to draw out the water for the purpose of keeping it conftantly rifing through the fand, and thereby to prevent the fand from hardening. What rendered this operation the more difcouraging was, that frequently after hav ing drawn out fix or seven feet of fand in the courfe of the day, upon founding the next morning the fand was found lowered only one foot in

the

the well, fo that more fand muft bave come in again. This, however, did not prevent me from proceeding in the fame manner during feveral days, though with little or no appearance of any advantage arifing from the great exertions we were making. After perfevering, however, for fome confiderable time, we perceived that the water rofe a little nearer to the furface, and I began to entertain fome hope that it might perhaps rife high enough to come above the level of the ground; but when the water had risen a few feet higher in the well, fome difficulties occurred, occafioned by accidental circumftances, which very much delayed the progrefs of the work; and it remained for a confiderable time very uncertain whether the water would run over the top of the well

or not.

"Thefe difficulties being at length furmounted, we continued during feveral days the process before mentioned, of drawing out the fand and water alternately; and I had the fatisfaction of feeing the water rife higher and higher, until at laft it run over the top of the well, into a temporary channel that conveyed it into the road. I then flattered myself that every difficulty was overcome; but a few days afterwards I difcovered that the upper part of the well had not been properly constructed, and it became neceffary to take down about 10 feet of brick-work. The water, which was now a continued ftream, rendered this extremely difficult to execute. I began by conftructing a wooden cylinder 12 feet long, which was let down into the well, and fufpended to a strong wooden ftage above, upon which I had fixed two very large pumps, of fuffi1797.

cient power to take off all the water that the fpring could furnish, at 11 feet below the furface. The ftage and cylinder were fo contrived as to prevent the poffibility of any thing falling into the well: and I contrived a gage, by which the men upon the stage could always afcertain to the greateft exactnefs the height of the water within the cylinder. This precaution was effentially neceff ry, in order to keep the water a foot below the work which was doing on the outside of the cylinder, to prevent the new work from being wetted too foon. After every thing was prepared, we were employed eight days in taking down to feet of the wall of the well, remedying the defects, and building it up again; during which time ten men were employed, five relieving the other five, and the two pumps were kept conftantly at work during one hundred and ninety-two hours. By the affiftance of the gage, the water was never fuffered to. rife upon the new work until it was made fit to receive it. When the cylinder was taken out, the water again run over into the temporary channel that conveyed it into the road.

"The top of the well was afterwards raifed 18 inches, and conftructed in fuch a manner as to be able to convey the water five different ways at pleasure, with the power of being able to fet any of thefe pipes dry at will, in order to repair them whenever occafion fhould require. The water being now entirely at command, I again refolved upon taking out more fand, in order to try what additional quantity of water could be ob tained thereby. I cannot exactly afcertain the quantity of fand taken

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