Now whether we reckon the semi-diameter 5011 Italian miles or 3436 English miles 60 miles to a degree or 3780 English miles 66 to a degree that decides not the controversie whether of these either Hopton or Diggs is right or either of them both or neither of them both First for Hopton I cannot think him to be true for that he sheweth no reason nor demonstration of it and although 4½ inches may serve the first mile yet I cannot think every mile is alike for this water-level must of necessitie be supposed to be a right line drawn or running from the top of the earths hemisphear there making an acute angle with the tangent and running between the said tangent and the earths Perimeter such as the tangent-line BG in the last diagram Now there may be infinite such lines supposed between the said tangent and the earths circumference and is there not as good reason for all as for any for one as for another there must be a terminus ad quem given as well as a terminus à quo Besides all this all these lines will be in the aire above the earth but the water must not run above the earth that is Gods decree but in the earths Perimeter Therefore this difference of levels must needs be a line falling from the tangent-line that runneth from the top of the earth to any distance desired which according to Digs is the excess of an Hypotenusal above the Radius or earths semi-diameter running from the centre of the earth to any distance of miles poles pases or feet desired or it is the natural secant of the arch which it cutteth in meeting with any distance of the said tangent assigned In the former diagram let ABCD represent the upper hemisphear of the earth E the centre EB or ED or any of the pricked parallels falling on ED conceive them all to be semi-diameters of the earth B the top of the earth BG the tangent line BN a line in the aire between the tangent and the circumference of the earth now for that it is impossible to make his example to appear to the eye out of the said diagram both by reason the said secant falls so near the semi-diameter EB and that there is no apparent difference between the said tangent and the earths Perimeter let us suppose the semi-diameter of the earth both EB and BG to be either of them 100 miles and let the distance BF be 40 miles then the secant or Hypotenuse is EF which for that it is longer by FO then EB therefore FO is the difference of the levels found as is before declared And although Digs neither doth set down the reason of his finding it after this manner yet it is easily perceived of every one that hath any understanding in triangles for it is but the finding out of the Hypotenuse of a rectangle right-line triangle having the two leggs given and it may also be wrought by the Logarithmes but with little less labour Some think also that the line FP is the difference of the levels but since the difference in 100 miles is almost insensible between those two we will onely demonstrate it to you and then let every man use his own discretion Let us suppose in this diagram ABFD the upper hemisphear of the earth whose semi-diameter EB is 3780 English miles 66 to a degree to which is equal both BG and FM and ED for ED is equal to EB Element 1 Defin. 15. and BG and ED. Element 1 Prop. 36. therefore it is equal to EB Axiom 1. Element 1. and FM is equal to EB Elem. 1. Def 15. and BG and ED Elem. 1. Prop. 36. therefore equal to EB Axiom 1. Elem. 1 and ME is equal to FB Elem 1. Prop. 36. And because in the other example we could not distinguish one thing from another because of the nearness of things one to another therefore we will take the distance BF which suppose 1500 miles which to save labour we will keep still in miles First therefore to find EO EF and OF first EO is = to EB Elem. 1. Def. 15. for EF square EB 3780. it is 14288400. also square BF 1500 it makes 2â—91000 these added make 16538400. whose square root EF is English miles 4066¾ Whence take EB equal to EO Elem. 1. Def. 15. 3780. resteth OF English miles 286 â— 4. Then to finde BEF As 3780 Comp. Ar. 642250 is to Radius  so is 1500 317609. to tangent 21 d. 39 m. of BEF 959859. whose arch is BO whose natural tangent BF is 39694 parts and that is equal to LP Elem. 1. Prop. 36. which is sine of 23 d. 24 m. for as 3780 3,577492 to Rad. So 1500 13,176091 to S. 29 d. 24. m. 9,598599 whose complement is 66 degr 36 m. and the sine thereof MP 91775 and the versed sine thereof FP is equal to LB 8225 parts And to reduce them into miles say 100000. 9225 ∷ 3780. 311. FP whence take â—F 286 â— 4 the difference is 24¼ miles difference in 1500. But how can we do so since Mr. Frost then Manciple of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge since Sword-bearer to the Lord Maior and since that a Secretary to the Councel of State a man beyond all exception for integrity of life an excellent Mathematician one that brought the water from the Spittle-house to Emmanuel and thence to Christs Colledge told me that he came upon a time by mere accident in the Fenns to a place where an old river had run down some four miles and was brought four miles back again in a new cut and when they met the water in the old was but four inches above the water in the new Now the question is this Doth not this confirm or rather out-vie Hoptons tenent of four inches and an half to a mile seeing here is but four inches in eight miles which is half an inch for a mile Truly I think not for wheresoever you conceive your self to be there is the true top of the earth if there you are withall neither above nor below the true circumference of the earth such as I conceive the Fenns for the most part to be having formerly been made level as being part of the sea I see not but that the water may run both ways as well as in the sea if not all four ways as well as the four rivers in the garden of Eden And by this means if the meeting place was not some bowing of the earth of four inches thick why might not they have met of equal height Every one I suppose will confess with me that I being at B the water will run to C and to o and if you turn C uppermost will it not run from C to B as well are no places uppermost but B because I am not there certainly I am some wonderfull vertuous fellow well I will get thither and then it will run thither If any dislike this answer let him give
us a better CHAP. XXV Of Instruments for conveying of water and their use IF your distance be not above an 100 poles or thereabouts you may hang your Pandoron or Quadrant on the pin of the neck and then set up a staff or rather let one hold it upright with his face toward you at the head of the water moving a sheet of paper up or down as you standing 8 or 10 pole off in the water-way shall direct him by the signe of your hand till you having there set up your Instrument and plumb'd it truly level you see either through the sights or over side of the Quadrant the nether edge of the paper having first screwed the ruler fast and placed the thin edge thereof precisely upon the upper Horizontal line of the Instrument now take not your stations above 10 pole at the most from your standings both in regard of the refractions of the air which will deceive your sight as also for that though your Instruments be never so true yet if you fail either in your plumbing it or in laying your ruler but one tenth part of an inch false which is easily done you will fail so many tenths as are Tables lengths between your Table your staff which if your Table be 18 inches Radius and your station ten pole will come to eleven inches in that distance enough to marr your whole work Now he having placed his paper let him bring it staff and all to you without stirring it and then you having a two-foot rule and a stick in your hand about four foot and an half long measure first the height of your sights above the ground also from the bottom of his staff to the nether edge of the paper if both be alike then those two places are level if not then see which is most and how many inches there are odds if his be more then yours then your ground is risen more then his so many inches as the difference is but if you are more then he then you are lower and then the water will run or else not For it will never run higher naturally upward unless your former falls do countervail your rise Having thus found the difference you must in a note-book make two Tables one for the risings and another for the falls at each station with their titles of rising and falling over them and the number of inches at each station and the number of the stations on the left hand and you may do well also to measure the distance with a chain and set down on the right side the distance from the spring-head and at each station to observe some mark And having all done you must cast up the Tables each by it self the inches of the falls by themselves and the ascents by themselves then subtract the lesser total from the greater if the descents be most it will run so that there be no station in the way that is higher then the spring-head which if you suspect cast up both your Tables onely so far and you may easily know Yet if it should that will not cut you off altogether for though you cannot help your self by digging deep yet it is hard if you cannot by going about Having thus measured and found the difference you may for triall-sake exchange places and let him stand where you stood and do you stand at the fountain If there you finde the descent to be the same as you did before all is right and that you will hardly do unless your Instrument be both very large and very exact But now you must know that there is a difference between your being between the spring-head and him and his being between it and you for now if he be most he is lowest for always he that is most is lowest Now if you will you may either your self go on forward and let your assistant stand or rather your self stand there still if you remove not to prove as I said and so you may take two distances at one station especially if you have two assistants and all you three are in one direct line so if you keep your work in a streight line if two assistants stand in the water-way if you stand in the middle in a right-line if you see to one of them you see to the other without stirring the Instrument any ways Again so far as you go in a direct line if you have once set two marks level you may easily by them set up a third and fourth as far as it goeth in a streight line and when it turns then use your Instrument as afore Also it so falls out that water is to be brought out of some pond or level water if you bore holes in two boards like trenchers and sharpen sticks of equal height with white papers on them if the boards lying in the water two assistants hold the sticks that you may set up a third in a streight line with them with a mark upon it agreeing level with the other marks if they are too high remove them lower but both alike or your own higher contrá onely take just notice how high the two are above the water and then go on with a fourth and fifth so long as you go in a streight line and then use the Instrument as afore Also it may happen that you desire to bring water from some spring or head but you have neither level nor level water nor streight water-way but you suppose it will run and the way is not long and you would willingly try First then begin at the head and make a little trench of three or four pole long towards the way that it will run streight whether this be streight or crooked it matters not then let run so much water as may onely fill this trench if you finde it dry or shallower of water at the head then at the other end it shews the ground to be falling then do the like with three or four poles more still making the water to follow you till you be gone three or four pole in your streight line then having fill'd it that the water may stand level at both ends stick up two sticks one at one end the other at the other of equal length about four foot above the water then go on 10 or 12 pole in the same line where set up a mark so that you standing behinde it and looking to the middle mark either all the tops or all the bottoms according to which you measured your equal heights may agree then if that stick be longer beneath the mark then the other two it shews descent if any rising places be in the midst you may easily finde their rise by setting up a stick and measuring it as before CHAP. XXVI Of flowing of grounds MIne intent is not here to describe the manner of making engines sluces Cochleas mills c. to mount the water withall as being too great a charge for a small piece of
wood he makes a plow whose neck and handle were both one piece with this plow he plows this ground and never digged at all onely he had two following him with mattocks that if the plow was hanged in the middle of a great root that the horse could not break it then they cut it in sunder And lastly one exploit more was by a plow done by Mr. Taverner of Hexton in Hartfordshire Esquire Lord of the Town who because their high-way to Luton-market was up an extream steep hill for two or three furlongs space and often-times both in frost and rain so exceeding slippery an horse could scarce stand being all a rock of hurlock gets a plow and the neighbours willingly bear him company they plow about in a spiral line and so plowed furrow after furrow all one way turning all the moulds down the hill and so when they had plowed it broad enough once over then they begin and plow two or three furrows of the moulds twice over and the highest side deeper thus doing till they had made the highest side lowest onely by plowing so that they can now draw five quarters of wheat more easily up that hill with three horses then up the other with five And thus have we the way to drain such grounds wherein you may have the help of the plow It follows now to speak of those that must be done either chiefly by the spade or one-by the spade Chiefly by the spade called water-furrowing that is when you have new sown any grain whatsoever then presently water-furrow it either with plow or spade or both But if it fall out that in a floud the water goes not away so fast as it comes though within two or three days after it will be clean gone yet you are never the near it hath done already what hurt it can do your grain is drown'd and the fault is in the main drains yet not in their depth because they will be dry within two or three days after but in their breadth Now if this had been a new drain you might have made it with the plow as was said before or if you will deepen this old one with the plow it may be you may but to make it broader you cannot if it be either very deep or very narrow in the bottom therefore you must widen with the spade onely And for that where cattel go over such drains they commonly tread in the earth and stop up the water therefore to prevent it get good oaken timber hew two sides of each piece which let it be eleven or twelve inches Diameter slit these in the middle let them be two or three foot longer then the breadth of the ditch lay them edge to edge the sawn side upward nayl ledges on the out-sides and lay gravel or earth on the top and stop up with bushes or ditch up or both the old going over For bogs and quagmires These for the most part come of spewing springs that are in a vein most commonly of gravel near the superficies of the ground and drawn still more upward by the heat of the Sun or else in such places as formerly have been all water as the Fenns sometime have been and so growing of weeds at first they rotting have turned to earth and the crop thereof every year turning to earth in process of time swells and grows up to a great height as is manifest by divers rivers formerly navigable now quite grown up I have seen in Maldon-moor the roots of two willow-trees in the bottom of a drain about a yard deep in moorish-ground within three pole of the firm ground where one might see the stroke of the axe that felled them to this day this ground about was excellent good turf and on a sudden perfect sound and so all along for twenty miles long and in some places 30 40 50 60 pole wide it is good turf-ground which makes me judge all was a navigable river in times past as also the Towns names bordering upon it as Temsford-Islands Seaford Fleet-haven and Fleetwick Secondly one William Quayt of Maldon who yet is or lately was living plowed up an anchor in a field called Wickham-field adjoyning to the river Thirdly there is evident mention of a very strong Castle at a place called Bedlow situate upon a firm rock of hard red stone hard by this moor-side and now it groweth daily more solid by draining and I perswade my self will ere long come to be firm pasture yet I do fully perswade my self it will scarce be so profitable then to the owner as now it is I remember before cutting of turves was known a man might have bought in Westoning-moore in Bedfordshire an acre of meadow the free state for ten shillings nay it was so bad that scarce any man knew his own they so little regarded it yet since they have made fourty pounds of an acre and yet have their ground still which in 30 or 40 years they make as much more Now if your bogs be so tender that one cannot go on them then at the upper part where it first riseth make a large deep ditch so deep that it may be lower and deeper then the springs by a foot or two This convey so that no water may stand in the ditch so that the water of the springs may so be cut off making a ditch though not so big round about and when it hath drained thus a while that you can go upon it then dig drains with turf-spades ascue up the hill as deep as you can and some twenty foot asunder And thus in short space you may have either good turf-ground or hop-ground or Orchard or pasture at your pleasure CHAP. XXVIII To cleanse a ditch whether it be full of flaggs or mud and not empty out the water IF it be full of weeds get a drag or dung-rake with three teeth and drag out the weeds likewise for the mud get a mud-pan which is made of the back of an armour make a socket and slit the little end forked and flat it and spread it four or six inches and rivet it on the plate then rivet another round piece both close by the socket and also into the bottom of the plate to strengthen the forks setting it coming toward you as your dragâ—rake doth Then if there be much mud draw out some of it first all along the ditch and when that is hard so that you can go upon it then draw out more Thus may you go to it when you will and leave when you will without dressing you or damming the water And thus one man will draw out as much in an hour as three men will throw out with scopets CHAP. XXIX Of cleansing a Pond six or seven pole broad being grown over with a coat of weeds that it will near bear one without abating the water YOu shall for this purpose get a boat and a haling-line good store of drags cutting-knives of both sorts such
as they cut mows or hay-stacks with both like sithes and stabs also wheel-barrows and half-inch boards of six or seven foot long a piece If this coat of weeds be very soft you were best to nayl two boards together with ledges like a door but if it be any thing hard let them go single Then begin with your crones or drags and cleanse the out-sides with them first as far as you can reach and let the barrows carry it away out of your way then take your boat and spret and for want of a boat take a Brewers cooler and let two folk go into it and row your selves to the crust and laying your boards on it and you standing on them cut with your sithe pieces as long and broad as the board then take up that board as you stand on the other and remove it beyond it then take you the crones that stand on the bank and having fastened your haling-line both to the crone and to the stale of it by knitting a knot at the handle-end let them on the bank draw out those pieces which that they may do the more easily they may level a place about an handful above the water and pull them thither and then cut them smaller with their stabs and then draw them up Now then having thus gone round and cleared it from the sides round about pitch all your crones into one side of the core or crust and trie if you can draw it to the bank-side for these kind of cores never grow to the bottom especially if the water be deep which if you so draw it then may you standing on the bank finish all with your crones But if you cannot move it then with your sithe-knife and help of your dores and boards you may slit it all along either in the midst or as much as you think you can move at once But now because you must move your boards and dores end-long which is harder to do then side-ways your best way is to have a hook at the end of your haling-line and make a mortes at one end or both of each board and thus put the hook in the mortes of the hinder door and raising it a little at the end with a couple of chisils or such like draw it till it is entered upon the neather dore then having a board lie by the side of it stay your self on it till the hinder be drawn along upon the other and lie foremost and thus may you divide and draw piece after piece till you have finished CHAP. XXX Of cleansing of water SOmetime you are to bring water to an house but you have none but such as comes from noysome places now to purifie such water if you make a trench of a foot and an half deep and three or four pole long the longer the better and fill it a foot deep with hurlock or clunch cut in pieces as it were for the lime-kill then fill it an handfull higher with pebles then fill it up with gravel or earth it will so purifie it that it will be fit for brewing or the pot or laundressing or any thing else if you cannot get hurlock content your self with pebles Also it greatly mendeth water in a pumpe or well first to cleanse out the mud and then to put in clunch into it It will likewise purifie the water very much if you would lay clunch or hurlock as high as the water riseth in your well in the same form that they use to lay their bricks so will the water cleanse it self by draining through the body of the clunch CHAP. XXXI Of quenching an house on fire THe Instruments for this purpose not to speak of the water-squirt which will throw a whole hogs-head of water to the top of an house at once for that such are scarce to be had save in some great Towns or Cities are pikes spits mawkins pike-staves forks wet-blankets ladders buckets scopets pails c. and the materials water coal-dust turf-ashes wood-ashes sand horse-dung dust dirt and in extremity even drest-grain it self I know you will think it strange that I should mention pikes and spits dust sand and ashes but I speak on often experience that four men that know how to use these things will sooner quench a fire then 100 that go to work with ladders and buckets to strip houses and hooks to pull them down It 's a misery to speak it when the rude multitude are once come together every man will have his own way If it be a dwelling-house some will busy themselves to carry out brass pewter but their chief aim is at the monychest whilest others wait to take it of them and carrie it away others perhaps of more honesty but less wit will be ripping the house and so let the fire have the more air to burn the more violently that whereas they think thereby to save other houses that are near to it they use for the most part the onely way to fire them for the greater the flame is the more is the danger and the farther the sparks of fire will flie And now if you will vouchsafe the reading which is no great labour for you I shall endeavour God willing to give you such directions whereby you may with least loss least help and most speedily quench any fire wheresoever it begins or howsoever it comes The first rule is this If it be in house or chimney do not by any means open any vent to let it out especially upwards but rather stop all the holes you finde If the foot of a brick or stone-chimney be on fire discharge a pistoll twice or thrice upon it so foot and fire and all falls together If it be a wooden-chimney and that all the timber both ground-sells studs mantle tree beams and all are on fire at once then first with your pike-staff fork or spit rub down all the coal then throw on water and then ashes and all is done And thus did I my self all alone quench a fire at Westoning in Bedfordshire where coming that way accidentally and meeting a woman coming out of a yard wringing her hands and crying I asked her the reason but she gave me no answer whether it were for that I was a stranger to her or whether for grief she could not speak I know not but away she runs as fast as she could I fearing some such matter ran into the yard but finding the door lockt and hearing withall a fluttering of fire I took up an hogs-trough which lay there and ran against the door and broke it open and went in where I found a buck of clothes standing on a tre sole and a great many turves under it almost burnt out yet the buck had no hurt but they had fired the end-groundsels studs and all the timber of the chimney I having been at the Fullers earth-pits not far from Oburn to survey them had the foot of my plain-Table in my hand wherewith I rubbed down all the
a rich soil Also where thistles nettles or other weeds grow rank Also where trees grow long and upright Also where fruit especially pears are more pleasant in tast then in other places for if a young pear-tree bears pleasant pears in a good ground and you remove it into a bad ground you will think the fruit not to be of the same kinde yet all grounds are not alike for all things Non omnis fert omnia tellus And for the most part those grounds that are most barren above are richest within as stone-pits fullers-earth lead coal tin silver and gold-mines Some grounds are fitter for wood then either for corn or grass I have seen a ground in Hartford-shire that hath been laid two years where were grown naturally black and rank sallows all over the ground in tussocks some six some seven foot high so that the crop of wood was more worth then the crop of grass CHAP. XXXV Of inriching lean ground LEan grounds are either inriched with rest or with dunging As for pasture if you neither eat nor mow it two or three years or onely mow it once a year or if you will eat it by no means eat it too low and you will greatly thereby both better the ground and get a speedier increase of the crop for after it once covers the ground it grows more in a week then in six weeks before by reason it keeps the ground both hot and moist yet not so hot as to be scorched with the Sun therefore be sure to spare such barren grounds by Candle-mass at the furthest As for lean arable though common-field ground it is a common thing in divers places where they have a great deal of lean land that lies far from any Town to let some thereof lie lea six or seven years and the longer it lies the more heart it gets As for dunging the benefit of hors-dung and cow-dung is every where known in part yet not to all alike some will not lay it on their land till it is rotten but will carry it out of their yards and lay it on dung-hills in the field either at the lands end or some place near to it though the land be not then sown whereby they make a double labour and lose a double benefit of their dung which they may easily finde by this that a great part of the strength of it goes into the ground it lies upon as appeareth in this for if they lay it in small heaps on the land where it should be spread if it lieth long unspread let them spread it as clean as they can yet those places will be ranker corn then the rest A second benefit which they lose is the stiving upward which in dry weather should be the onely nourishment to the corn If you please to try two acres of like land lying together and carry out twenty loads of hors-dung about Mid-summer that is new-made as such you may have at an Inn and lay that on a heap in the field by it self till February or March and then fetch twenty loads more of the like lay these twenty on one of the acres and the heap on the other but let your loads from the Inn be alike and then tell me which acre is the best barley But though you finde but little difference in the barley-crop you shall finde a vast difference in the peas-crop And if you will sow them three years together there will be no small odds for the stiving of the dung will be over in two or three years And this also will appear if you take a load of straw and lay it in some Orchard where no cattel come upon planks boards or stones and spread it so that the â—ain may get into it and turn it three or four times in a year and by three years end you will hardly have a quarter of a load of dung left and that which is left will be turned to earth also yet I deny not but that earth may be better then ordinary Also street-earth especially in Market-towns where goes store of sinks from stables kitchens dairy-houses but especially cisterns for malting I have known them that have got up all the piss they could get in a Market-town and carried it to their land in a tun and there strewed with good success But if they that have such convenience for carriage would but make triall of the water of the sink of a Chees-press or of cistern-cistern-water I doubt not but in short time there would be little of it lost And we see now how much soot is set by which within these fifty years men would not suffer to be thrown upon the dung-hill but into the midst of the street And although by Moses Law some great offenders were to have their land sown with salt and likewise in Judges ix 45 Abimelech when he took Sichem destroyed it and sowed it with salt the reason was that it should never bear grass nor grain And indeed it is an easie matter either with soot salt pigeon-dung or piss to over-dung and spoil all I have known some carry out pigeon-dung in sacks in May and lay a sack-full on a heap upon the corn but they could not gather it up so clean but they kill'd all the corn as far as the heap lay I have sown pigeon-dung in an extream hot and dry year upon barley on an hot and dry land when at harvest the barley hath scarce peeked out of the hose yet it hath been the best in the furlong Again I have in a wet year sown pigeon-dung on sand when my crop hath been more worth then the fee-simple or value of the ground â—and that is folded a little before or presently after the sowing doth far better then otherwise But herein many men wrong themselves in surfeiting their sheep in Summer-time when their fold goes on single-lands as on roods or half-acres in laying them so thick that they over-heat one another thinking that if they have as many hurdles as they had before that then they lie as thin as they did before but this I have spoken of before in the first Chapter where also I have shewed the disproportion and therefore to it I refer you Yet before I leave this I must add further that I see no reason why other countreys may not fold in Winter as well or rather then Oxfordshire or Buckinghamshire nay far rather either upon sward or arable especially Hartfordshire or Middlesex if they will do as they do that is winde their hurdles on two sides with broom and remove their hay-rack and cratches with their folds Hartfordshire hath far drier laire their sheep more hardy and sound and never rotting more hedges to shelter them and dung infinitely dearer And if they broom their hurdles to keep them warm then why not to keep them warm by keeping them together I never knew sheep take hurt by lying warm in Winter If you will not fold your arable