If loving hands a little after harvest-time would bring an alms of hips and haws and mountain-ash berries and drop them carelessly about the turf, the birds would scatter them, and help to bring back beauty to the Heath, that wild beauty that is Nature’s own, and, though quite unpremeditated, is ever in agreement with its surroundings. For the geological part of this chapter I am indebted to notes taken of a lecture on ‘Hampstead Hill in Past Ages,’ delivered by C. Evans, Esq., F.G.S., in Rosslyn Hill Schoolroom, March, 1872. CHAPTER XIV. _THE PONDS AND WATER-WORKS._ In the chain of ponds which make so charming a feature between Highgate and Caen Wood, or in some of them at least, we have, according to the brothers Storer,[226] all that remains visible of the river Fleet, which originally formed them. The others are as old as the time of Henry VIII., and owe their existence to the necessities of the citizens of London for a better water-supply. The ancient springs, which previous to 1544 abundantly supplied the city, had about that time ‘diminished and abated to the great discomodity of the inhabitants, and the threatened decay of the said Citie, if a speedy remedy was not provided.’ We learn that Sir William Boyer, Knight (subsequently Mayor of London), called ‘unto him dyvers grave and expert persons,’ who, by ‘diligent search and exploracion found dyvers great and plentiful springes at Hamstede Heath, and other places within five miles of London, very meet, proper, and convenient, to be brought and conveyed to the same.’ Upon which an Act was passed to empower the said Mayor and Commonalty to lay pipes, dig pits, and erect conduits in the grounds of all persons whatsoever, making satisfaction to the proprietors of the soil. Special provision being made for the protection of the springs ‘at the foot of the hyll of the sayde Heath, called Hamstede Heath, now closed in with brick for the comodity and necessary use of the inhabitants of the towne of Hamstede.’