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"A spot which Dr. Epps had lately discovered, and which greatly delighted him, was Warlingham Common, a few miles beyond Croydon. It is part of a range of table-land on the Surrey hills (on the chalk), a most salubrious spot, and there is charming scenery round about. His happiness in this place was very great-it became enthusiasm. The increase of his usually buoyant spirits commenced so soon as, on his way from Croydon to Warlingham, he reached the high land at Sanderstead, some three miles from Croydon, for then he felt the chest relieved, and could breathe better."-Biographical Notice of Dr. Epps attached to Diary.

"Foliage does not add to the salubrity of any place, and in excess is positively injurious. Many of the country seats of the gentry, so delightfully surrounded and embosomed in woods, are from that very cause unhealthy. Independent of the interruption of the free circulation of air which is so essential, a large quantity of vegetable matter in a state of decomposition is sometimes productive of disease, more especially in spring and autumn."-Dr. WIGAN on Brighton and its Climates.

"The pent-up valleys in some of the loveliest spots in England are never thoroughly flushed of their air sewage, in fact never thoroughly ventilated; the consequence being that they are often cold, damp, and filled with the air of vegetable decomposition, whilst the heights which wall them in are warm, dry, pure, bracing, and full of health. Frosts affect potatoes and fruit more frequently in the dewy calm air of a valley bottom than they do on the heights above, where the air is constantly changed. In such valleys man contracts rheumatism, the basis of the national heart disease, and what is of equal importance to know is, that in such valleys all diseases of the zymotic class linger the longest and assume the most aggravated form. The rheumatic and fever miasms hang about the still air of the valleys, and as it were grow in strength with the accumulation of air sewage."-Dr. HAVILAND on Brighton as a Health Resort.

"Those districts which are entirely hemmed in on all sides, and thus do not admit of thorough air-flushing at all, have invariably the very highest mortality from heart disease, while those districts which admit air-flushing on all sides have the lowest mortality. Wherever the highest mortality from heart disease is indicated, there is to be found the greatest amount of rheumatism, and to rheumatism must be attributed the bulk of the fatal cases of heart disease in this country; It will therefore be seen how necessary thorough air-flushing is."Dr. HAVILAND, Geography of Disease.

"Dryness, a free circulation of air, a full exposure to the sun, are the material conditions to be attended to in choosing a site for a residence. Of all the physical qualities of the air humidity is the most injurious to human life, and therefore in selecting a situation for building, particular regard should be had to the circumstances which are calculated to obviate humidity in the soil and atmosphere."Sir JAMES CLARK on Climate.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

RECLAMATION.

BY EDWARD HOWARD DAWSON, of Lancaster, F.S I., A.R.I.B.A., M.R.A.S. E.

IT would be difficult to find a side of the subject of "Land" of more entirely entrancing interest than that of the development of the latent powers of our Mother Earth, which are either buried below the unquiet waters that engirdle our shores, or lying all helpless and untrained under their heather blush on our mountainsides and moorland mosses.

And if to the general mind this redemption and cultivation of land possesses such a charm, how much greater joy that man must feel, who having been guided by a science engendered of well-fraught practice, can in the eventide of life feast his eyes upon acres of fair pasture-land and waving grainfields, that have come as a crown of glory to reward his manhood's toils.

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Swift's oft-told observation that the man who makes two blades of grass or two ears of corn grow where but one grew before, deserves well of his country," seems but the scantiest meed of praise in recognition of such patriotic work as the enlargement of the area and of the food-producing capacity of his country!

Without entering on the technical and highlyimportant data of such a subject, t may be possible in a

few sentences to indicate the course usually pursued to make a reclamation of land, and if haply, arouse interest and stimulate support to those who are only waiting for this to be given them-either by the nation through its Government, or by the subscription of capitalists who, whilst blind to the possibility of the development of the resources of their own country, venture the wildest schemes over-seas,-to attempt the reclamation of a part of some of the 600,000 acres which so long ago as 1844 were computed to be available for this purpose in the British Isles alone.

The soil of a country has always been regarded as the basis of its national trade and wealth, and from the earliest times there have been men in these islands who have bestowed their energies and treasure upon plans and projects for the reclaiming, planting and cultivation of land to gain increased production.

There has, of course, been nothing of the enormous extent and gigantic and complex character as that to which Holland-sometimes called "the gift of the ocean -owes its existence; but the great inland reformations in the time of Elizabeth and the vast level of the Fens, reclaimed under the reign of the Stuarts and since, are instances of operations where the national resources have been sensibly devoted to promoting and carrying forward what were and are essentially national interests.

Most schemes of reclamation have, however, been left to be promoted and executed by individual enterprise, and great activity under these conditions was apparent towards the close of the last century, and during the first three decades of the present, when many thousands of acres were embanked off the estuaries of rivers or snatched from sea shores on almost every coast.

The work of Reclamation of Waste Land may be divided into two classes, (1) that which rescues it from the coeval creation and its ever-predatory enemy, water; and (2) that which saves it from itself and delivers it from the degradation that came upon it as punishment to our first parents at the Fall.

The process in the case of the former class is of a threefold nature, viz. : (1) embankment, (2) drainage, and (3) bringing into a state of cultivation. The second class requires the application of the two last stages only, and is consequently of a much less venturesome character. The consideration that the land is of a suitable description for its proposed reclamation is, however, an equally important one in dealing with both classes, and generous attention should first be directed to this. After satisfaction as to the general conditions of eligibility and ripeness, the chief points to be observed in reclamation of land from water are-

(1.) Sufficient average height of surface above ordinary or medium low-water level to admit of efficient natural superficial drainage, both for its own and any fresh water that may have to flow over it, and this not only for the sake of its own better fertility and freeing from saline matter, but because the construction and cost of the embankment will be increased in proportion to the lowness of the land, and it must be borne in mind that this expenditure bears sensitive relation to the estimated ultimate agricultural value of the enclosure.

(2.) The nature of the soil-whether of a clayey, sandy, or loamy character-this not only guiding the subsequent operations of the husbandman, but actually determining the period of time that must elapse before any thought of cultivation is entertained, due to the necessity for the

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