He immediately commenced the * A hoghshead is equal to 63 gallons. [Ep.J

54 PRELIMINARY ESSAY.

work, and, by the aid of a loan from King James L, who stipulated that one rnoiety of the property should be conveyed to him for security, and triumphing over many obstacles from landholders, through whose possessions the river was to pass, and the greater obstacles arising from deficient skill in engineering, he accomplished it in five years and on the ;

29th September, 1613, the water entered the reservoir now known as the New River Head, in the parish of Clerkenwell. The execution of such an enterprise in that age was not only arduous, but deemed wonderful. Stowe thus alludes to some of its difficulties " the : depth of the trenches in some places descended full thirty feet, if not more, whereas in other places it required a sprightful arte again to mount over a valley in a trough between a couple of hills and the trough all the while borne up by wooden arches, some of them fixed in the ground very deep and rising in height above 20 feet." One of these troughs, or wooden aqueducts, near Bush Hill, was 660 feet long, and in width and depth, five feet, and lined with lead. Another similar trough of 462 feet, 17 feet high, conducted the water over a valley near Islington, and was called the boarded river. Owing to leakage, decay, and constant repairs, incident to such structures, they have been superseded by artificial mounds of earth and clay, preserving the natural flow and level of the river. The old Chronicler, Stowe, thus relates the rejoicings, on the occasion of first letting the water of the New River into the cisterns or reservoirs prepared for it. " Being brought to the intended cistern, but not, as yet, the water admitted entrance thereinto on Michaelmas day, anno. 1613, being the day when Sir Thos.