Rudimentary Treatise on the Drainage of Districts and Lands

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John Weale, 1849 - Drainage - 142 pages

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Page 35 - To understand the nature of the process, it will be necessary to advert, in a general way, to a few long-known chemical properties of the familiar substance chalk ; for chalk at once forms the bulk of the chemical impurity that the process will separate from water, and is the material whence the ingredient for effecting the separation will be obtained. " In water, chalk is almost, or altogether insoluble ; but it may be rendered soluble, by either of two processes of a very opposite kind. When burned,...
Page 90 - Vesuvius may be considered as the type of a fertile soil, and its fertility is greater or less in different parts, according to the proportion of clay or sand which it contains. " The soil which is formed by the disintegration of lava cannot possibly, on account of its...
Page 3 - Mathematical Master of King's College, London, who, with the co-operation of the following gentlemen, will produce a set of books that shall be efficient both for public and self-instruction : — WSB WOOLHOUSE, FRAS, Actuary of the National Loan Fund, Author of several Scientific Works. HENRY LAW, Civil Engineer, Editor and Author of several Professional Works. JAMES HADDON, Arithmetical and Second Mathematical Master, King's College, London. The Subjects are as follows: ELEMENTARY TREATISE on ARITHMETIC,...
Page 113 - ... having forced it down about four feet below the bottom of the trench, on pulling it out, to his astonishment, a great quantity of water burst up through the hole he had thus made, and ran down the drain.
Page 113 - In order to drain this field he cut a trench about four or five feet deep a little below the upper side of the bog, or where the wetness began to make its appearance; and after proceeding with it...
Page 14 - The cause of rain, therefore, is now, I consider, no longer an object of doubt. If two masses of air of unequal temperatures, by the ordinary currents of the winds, are intermixed, when saturated with vapour, a precipitation ensues. If the masses are under saturation, then less precipitation takes place, or none at all, according to the degree. Also the warmer the air, the greater is the quantity of vapour precipitated in like circumstances...
Page 19 - The precise quantity of water required for the agricultural purposes of any district depends upon the nature of the soil and the crops, and the position of the district in relation to the surrounding country. Thus, if a permeable soil occupy an elevated site, the water deposited upon it will pass rapidly, and, perhaps, before serving for the germination or nutriment of the plant. If, on the other hand, as is the far more common case in this country, the soil be of a retentive character, and the site...
Page 35 - ... but it must combine with seven additional ounces of that acid. In such a state of combination chalk exists in the waters of London — dissolved, invisible, and colourless, like salt in water. A pound of chalk, dissolved in 560 gallons of water by seven ounces of carbonic acid, would form a solution not sensibly different in ordinary use from the filtered water of the Thames in the average state of that river.
Page 1 - ... proposes to attempt in the cause of Popular Instruction will be done well, and that these little treatises will fully answer the purpose for which they are intended, namely, to become convenient and accurate Guide-Books in...
Page 57 - Virgin, in the year above said; before whom the jury then presented, that one Geffrey Gaddesby, late Abbot of Selby, did cause a strong sluice of wood to be made upon the river Trent, at the head of a certain sewer, called the Mare-dyke, of a sufficient height and breadth for the defence of the...

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