evinced a want of true
preception of the great object of all the labor that had preceded it. It
may seem curious to our experiences, in these days, that such a doctrine
could ever have needed to be enforced by argument; yet no one will deem it
wonderful who has personally witnessed the unaccountable and ever new
difficulty of getting proper attention paid to the leveling of the bottom
of a drain, and the laying of the tiles in that continuous line, where one
single depression or irregularity, by collecting the water at that spot,
year after year, tends toward the eventual stoppage of the whole drain,
through two distinct causes, the softening of the foundation underneath
the sole, or tile flange, and the deposit of soil inside the tile from the
water collected at the spot, and standing there after the rest had run
off. Every depression, however slight, is constantly doing this mischief
in every drain where the fall is but trifling; and if to the two
consequences above mentioned, we may add the decomposition of the tile
itself by the action of water long stagnant within it, we may deduce that
every tile-drain laid with these imperfections in the finishing of the
bottom, has a tendency toward obliteration, out of all reasonable
proportion with that of a well-burnt tile laid on a perfectly even
inclination, which, humanly speaking, may be called a permanent thing. An
open ditch cut by the most skillful workman, in the summer, affords the
best illustration of this underground mischief. Nothing can look smoother
and more even than the bottom, until that uncompromising test of accurate
levels, the water, makes its appearance: all on a sudden the whole scene
is changed, the eye-accredited level vanishes as if some earthquake had
taken place: here, there is a gravelly _scour_, along which the stream
rushes in a thousand little angry-looking ripples; there, it hangs and
looks as dull and heavy as if it had given up running at all, as a useless
waste of energy; in another place, a few dead leaves or sticks, or a
morsel of soil broken from the side, dams back the water for a
considerable distance, occasioning a deposit of soil along the whole
reach, greater in proportion to the quantity and the muddiness of the
water detained. All this shows the paramount importance of perfect
evenness in the bed on which the tiles are laid. _The worst laid tile is
the measure of the goodness and permanence of the whole drain_, just as
the weakest