of the best kind, and no expense has been spared to secure perfect comfort.

The terms are not extravagant, and indeed much the same as those at all the spas in England. A single person may board for five shillings per day, and secure an excellent bedroom for one shilling more per night. If he has a servant, the latter will be boarded and lodged for three shillings per day. A private sitting-room is charged a guinea a week; but few need require that accommodation, as there is both a morningroom and a drawing-room for the use of the boarders.

Those who wish to live privately will find a private sittingroom and private boarding most convenient, and by no means extravagant, being charged six shillings a day for the latter, and three shillings for the former, or three guineas a week altogether. Surely the expense of twelve guineas for a month's course of the water cannot be said to be too large for the recovery of one's health. Perhaps the charge which might be reduced is that for the baths. Three shillings a bath is too much; invalids should be tempted, by some bonus in the way of a general subscription for the whole season, to use more baths than they do at present, when a person taking twenty-four baths in six weeks pays at the same rate for each bath as he who takes only half a dozen baths. This should not be so. The terms for drinking and the use of the pump-room are two shillings per week each person.

To some people the idea of sojourning in the midst of the fens of Lincolnshire while seeking health at the spring of Woodhall, may seem preposterous, as they probably attach to such a locality the old reputation of its being particularly unwholesome. But however just such an opinion may have been formerly, it has ceased to be generally applicable to the whole fenny district of the county, since the introduction of an extensive and most effectual method of draining. That method consists in drawing off from the lowlands the ordinary drain-water sufficiently early to allow room for the flood-water (whenever any such comes down) to pass away.

This is now effected by means of a twenty-horse steamengine, in lieu of the windmills previously employed.

It is to be regretted that a plan which has worked quite well in the three or four fenny districts where it has been adopted for the last four or five years, should not have long ago been followed in all other parts of the county similarly situated. Had this been done, the farmers of some of the parishes near Lincoln, Boultham for instance, would not have had to deplore, as they did in 1839, the general submersion of their lowlands, whilst covered with crops of corn of a most beautiful and promising appearance.

The water collected in the sectional drains is pumped into the Delph, a large drain something like a canal, which runs nearly parallel to the Witham, and thence it either flows. or is lifted into the river.

These successful operations have been the means of bringing much land, before useless, into cultivation; and the progressive improvement of those lands has been such, that very large crops of corn are gathered upon them now. Indeed, the quantity of wheat raised on every acre of well-drained fen, is larger than that produced by the same quantity of land elsewhere, in the middle part of Lincolnshire.

This

The corn is certainly not of so good a quality as that grown on ordinary lands; neither is it so heavy. arises from the peculiar nature of the soil of a newly-drained fen, which consists of a loose black peat, generally eighteen inches, and in some places two feet, and even two feet and a half deep.

To obviate this difficulty in the arable soil, many of the farmers on the recovered lands have, within the last few years, adopted with great success the plan of "claying" the supersoil. Clay is found immediately below the upper loose peat stratum. Towards the end of the year men are set upon digging trenches a yard wide, and parallel to each other, the whole length of the field, with a depth of from four and sometimes five to six feet. They first throw up

and arrange on the one side of such trenches the supersoil, and next fetch the clay from the bottom, and lay it along the opposite side. The former is then thrown into the trench, and the extracted clay deposited over it, while the two soils are mixed near the surface, and their amalgamation completed further by the subsequent use of the plough.

On such lands presenting a firm and consistent soil, I have seen corn grown nearly as good in quality as that which I had noticed on the higher lands in the vicinity of the great Roman road, on the Sleaford road, and also on what is called the "Clift Row."

After all, the true and effectual remedy for all the submerged lands, and those still liable to such inundations, among which I include those lands more immediately connected with the Spa which has formed the subject of the present chapter, would be to enlarge the Witham, and make the outfall at Boston more spacious than it is at present, in order that it may carry away a larger quantity of water between tide and tide.

Connected with this important operation, comes naturally before us that gigantic, yet plausible scheme, propounded by the eminent engineer who superintends the wonderful doings at Hartlepool, for the formation of a new general outfall into the German Ocean of the waters of not fewer than four rivers, the Witham included; by means of which, while their discharge into the great estuary called the WASH would be greatly facilitated, and made more regular as well as uniform (thereby improving not only the lands of Lincolnshire, but those of Norfolk), valuable land, to the extent of 150 thousand acres, principally of alluvial deposit, would be recovered, at the cost of twelve pounds per acre, the average value of the fee-simple of which might be expected to be at least forty pounds per acre.

This tempting speculation has been offered to the public by a company, I understand, already formed and in earnest,

styled The Company of Proprietors of the Great Level of the Wash.

When I add that Earl Fitzwilliam, Lord George Bentinck, the Earl of Hardwicke, the Honourable Eliot Yorke, M. P., and others, are in the direction, my readers will readily conclude that this is not a mere wild scheme to catch the unwary.

Do I mention these facts, or enter into such matters for any purpose alien to the principal object of my present volumes? Far from it. The assainissement, as the French, with a word untranslatable, yet full of meaning, would say, of the lowlands throughout the extensive districts of Lincolnshire before mentioned, which must follow as the natural result of the success of such an operation as Sir John Rennie recommends, must render the climate near and about the Spas partially described in the preceding and present chapter perfectly safe; and do away with the old prejudices entertained against Lincolnshire fens. Hence my introduction of the matter just treated, and which I deemed it my duty to study, and submit to my readers.

After all, perhaps, the climate of Lincolnshire may not require my advocacy to prove not only its salubriousness, but its beneficial influence on longevity, as well as in promoting the multiplication of mankind, even before the draining of the fens had been dreamt of. For I find on the grave of Dean Honeywood, in Lincoln Cathedral, a registry of births and deaths (entered with a precision equal to that of her Majesty's registrar-general for births, deaths, marriages, &c.) which shows how prolifically the generations near the fens went on in the Reverend Gentleman's times. The said Dean of Lincoln, it appears, was grandchild of a dame Mary Honeywood, and one of three hundred and sixty-seven persons lawfully descended from her, all of whom she had seen before she died: viz.-16 children of her own body, 114 grandchildren, 228 great grandchildren, and 9 of the fourth generation-Total 367.

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CHAPTER VI.

ASHBY-DE-LA-ZOUCH-WILLOUGHBY NEW BATHS

DERBY RUGBY.

An Invitation STAMFORD Springs- Stage-coach a Rarity-DERBY, Improvement, New Buildings-The New Catholic Church-Great Change in Derby occasioned by Railroads-Mr. Strutt's ARBORETUM The Largest EMBARCADERO in England-First Opening of the Derby Line to London-Ticket No. 1.-Awkward Journey-RAILROAD SPEED-Gluttony and Philosophy-The Long Coach-ASHBYDE-LA-ZOUCH-Source of the MOIRA Water-Its Physical, Chemical, and Remedial Properties-FOUR Analyses of the Water-all Different! What ought to be done?-Bathing in the Moira Water-The IVANHOE Baths-THE HOTEL-Mode of Living at the Spa-STRIKING CASES of Cure-WILLOUGHBY New Baths-RUGBY School-Road to Willoughby-The WELL-The Water-Properties Physical and Medical -Want of Accommodation-SUGGESTIONS-Excellency of the Water -Opinion of the Author thereon.

WHILE yet in the neighbourhood of Lincoln, busy in examining the geology of Woodhall Spa, and the agricultural capabilities of the country around it, I received from Dr. Hopkinson, a leading and much respected physician at Stamford, a letter inviting me over to that city, in reference to the principal object of my inquiries into mineral waters. "It would delight me," says he, "to see you as a visiter here. Stamford is very convenient on the north road, and if you would only let me know a few days previous to your coming, I will be ready to make your stay as interesting as I can. We have two or three mineral springs hereabouts: one rather