His lordship was probably as much surprised to ascertain that he had been working out a new system, as some man of whom we have heard, was, to learn that he had been speaking _prose_ all his life! At the call of the public, however, his lordship at once gave to the world the facts in his possession, making no claim to any great discovery, and leaving Mr. Trimmer to defend the new system as best he might. The latter, in one of his pamphlets published in defence of the Keythorpe system, states its claims as follows: "The peculiarities of the Keythorpe system of draining consist in this--that the parallel drains are not equidistant, and that they cross the line of the greatest descent. The usual depth is three and a half feet, but some are as deep as five and six feet. The depth and width of interval are determined by digging trial-holes, in order to ascertain not only the depth at which the bottom water is reached, but the height to which the water rises in the holes, and the distance at which a drain will lay the hole dry. In sinking these holes, clay-banks are found with hollows or furrows between them, which are filled with a more porous soil, as represented in the annexed sectional diagram. [Illustration: Fig. 4. _a_ _a_ Trial-holes. _b_ Clay-banks of lias or of boulder-clay. _c_ A more porous warp-drift filling furrows between the clay-banks.] "The next object is to connect these furrows by drains laid across them. The result is, that as the furrows and ridges here run along the fall of the ground, which I have observed to be the case generally elsewhere, the sub-mains follow the fall, and the parallel drains cross it obliquely. "The intervals between the parallel drains are irregular, varying, in the same field, from 14 to 21, 31, and 59 feet. The distances are determined by opening the diagonal drains at the greatest distance from the trial-holes at which experience has taught the practicability of its draining the hole. If it does not succeed in accomplishing the object, another drain is opened in the interval. It has been found, in many cases, that a drain crossing the clay-banks and furrows takes the water from holes lying lower down the hill; that is to say, it intercepts the water flowing to them through these subterranean channels. The parallel drains, however, are not invariably laid across the fall. The exceptions are on ground where the fall is very slight, in which case they are laid along the line of greatest descent. On such grounds there are few or no clay-banks and furrows."