Shaw, in his History of the Province of " that heathen customs were much practised among the people, such as Moray says, pilgrimages to wells, and building chapels to fountains.At the present time, in some parts of England, remains of well-worship are preserved in the custom of performing annual processions to them r decorating them with wreaths and chaplets of flowers, singing hymns, and reading a portion of the Gospel as part of the ceremonies," These same customs gave rise to the numerous holy wells which formerly abounded throughout the old world, and the memory of many of which is still preserved in names of towns. In the church of Nanterre, near Paris, the birth-place of St. Genevieve, is a well, by the water of which this patroness of the Parisians miraculously restored her blind mother, and many others to sight ! St. Winifred's Well, in Flintshire, England, from its,

2 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. sacred character, gave name to the town of Holywell. Mr. Pennant says, the custom of visiting this well in pilgrimage, and offering up devotions there, was not in his time " in the entirely lai'd aside ; summer, a few are to be seen in deep devotion, up to their chins for hours, sending up their prayers, or performing a number of evolutions round the polygonal well."

In all ages and countries, from the most remote periods, a supply of the indispensable article water has been an object of solicitude, and various were the means by which it was obtained and diffused. In Asia, the original home of the human race, where rain seldom falls, and rivers and running streams are rare, wells were early devised. The antiquity, indeed, of this mode of obtaining and collecting water, goes beyond the records of history, sacred and profane and hence we have no clue to the ;