DRAINING

The art of freeing the surface of the soil from superfluous water, considered with reference to cultivated vegetables, and the health of man and animals. Water may become superfluous by being collected in the natural hollows on the surface, and thus forming bogs; by being retained in the sxirface stratum, in consequence of a retentive subsoil; or by oozing through a moist subsoil to the surface stratum, in consequence of supplies from subterraneous sources. Water collected in bogs, or marshy places, remains there, because it has no natural outlet, neither by an opening or hollow along the natural surface, nor by the porosity of the subsoil, inconsequence of which the water might sink into it and disappear. The obvious mode of draining in the first case is by a trench or drain, so deep as to draw the water from the lowest parts of the hollow, bog, or marsh. Where water is retained in the surface soil in consequence of a retentive subsoil, as in the case of clays and many loams, the most effective mode is to cut a number of small drains parallel to and at short distances from one another; and by the tops of these drains reaching within an inch or two of the bottom of the surface soil, which in cultivation is turned over by the plough, they absorb the superfluous water that pa es through this soil and carry it off. Or, should the land be in pasture, the tops of the drain should be brought within an inch or two of the gra y surface, so as to intercept the water, both oozing laterally from the surface soil, and vertically from among the leaves of the gra . It may be observed also that pasture lands on this description of retentive soil may be more readily drained when laid into ridges, and an underground drain formed under each furrow or surface drain. This, however, is not e ential; and though furrows or surface drains would be no deformity in field culture, yet in lawns and parks the appearance of furrows would destroy the continuity and evenne of surface, which in lawns is one chief source of beauty. To drain the surface soil, where it is supplied by water from the subsoil, requires some knowledge of the strata of which the subsoil is composed. In general the strata composing the subsoil lie over one another in a direction more or le approaching to horizontal; and when the natural inclination of the surface is everywhere parallel to this strata beneath, the water, if it oozes out of the subsoil at all, will generally do so equally throughout the subsoil; and in such cases numerous drains at no great distance are required to carry it off, precisely as in the case of draining soils with retentive subsoils. But when the line of surface does not correspond with the line of substrata, but intersects this line, then water will generally be found oozing out at the line of intersection, technically called the cropping out of the strata. The quantity of water which will i ue from these sections or croppings out of broken strata will depend on a great variety of circumstances, into which it is unnece ary here to enter; "because in all cases the mode of draining is the same, viz. that of forming a drain parallel to the line of the fracture of the strata. This drain in some cases is not required to extend the whole length of the line of fracture; because if the strata have a double inclination, so as it were to conduct the water to one angle or point, a drain at that angle or point will carry 361 DRAMA. off the whole of the superfluous water contained in the strata. The subsoil in some cases is composed of strata in a nearly vertical position, and in others of strata alternately depre ed and elevated, so that a section through them would form a serpentine line; and sometimes the subsoil is composed of strata the layers of which have been broken up and jumbled together. All these, and other cases, are to be drained in one or more of the above described modes; that is, accumulated water, whether in the soil or above it, is to be let off by cuts or drains made at the lowest points of accumulation; and surface soil saturated with water, whether from greater atmospherical supplies than can be carried off by evaporation or can sink into the subsoil, or whether it arise from sources in the subsoil, is to be carried off by numerous drains close to one another, and the tops of which are within a few inches of the cultivated soil, or of the permanent clothing of gra or oth.er herbage. DRAMA (from the Greek word d^cc/ut-et., an action or thing done j derived from the verb d^xM, I act or do), has been defined a species of poem in which the action or narrative is not related, but represented. The invention of the drama is one of those which should seem to proceed most naturally from the ordinary customs and feelings of men. There is a species of dramatic action which seems almost instinctive; we naturally imitate the tone and gestures of others in reciting their sayings or adventures, or even in adopting their sentiments. Yet some nations appear never to have taken the farther step of doing, methodically and with design, what all do involuntarily. In the accounts which we po e of the ancient Egyptians, for example, we have no trace of their having po e ed dramatic representation. But among a great number of tribes, wholly independent of each other, we find something approaching to the dramatic art intermingled with their common or solemn customs, and generally connected with religious observance. This was especially the case in Greece, whence the name and substance of the drama have been chiefly derived by the modern European nations. The history of the development of the dramatic art in Greece is well known: its elements were found in the religious festivals celebrated from the earliest ages in that country. The feasts of Bacchus in particular had sacred choruses or odes; these were afterwards intermixed with episodic narrations of events in mythological story, recited by an actor in the festival with gesticulation: thence again, the next step was to introduce two actors with alternate recitation; and thus were produced tragedy {r^ccyaihia., the song of the goat, from the animal which was led about in those festive proce ions); and comedy {xufx-aiiia,, the village song), which differed from the former in that the dialogue of the interlocutors was satirical, and not mythological. The early Greek tragedy was a dramatic representation of some scenes or events recorded in the national traditions, the actors personating those who played a part in these events, together with a chorus or band of singers, representing such persons as might naturally be supposed to have been bystanders at the occurrence (captive women, old men, or counsellors, .), who sang at intervals, during the representation, hymns to the gods, or songs appropriate to the scenes pa ing in representation: while the Attic comedy, in its first invention, must be regarded as a parody on tragedy, in which the personages were either real characters introduced for the purpose of satire, or ludicrous personifications..iEschylus, the oldest tragic writer (with the exception of Phrynichus, his cotemporary), carried the Greek drama at once to nearly its highest state of perfection. Sophocles and Euripi des introduced additional actors into the dialogue (which at first admitted only two at the same time), and turned the naked recitals of events which form the substance of the plays of ^schylus into something more nearly resembling the modern idea of a plot, with contrasted characters and incidents leading to the accomplishment of a main action. Many tragic writers, the whole of whose works have been lost, flourished after Euripi des in Athens and Alexandria; but they do not geem to have altered the character of the art which they received from their predece ors. The fate of comedy was different: the old Attic comedy was a political or philosophical satire in action, which m form was a burlesque on the tragedy. Afterwards, pa ing through the intervening stage of the middle comedy, of which we know little, the art acquired in the new comedy of Mcnander and Philemon a character somewhat approaching to that in which it is at present cultivated; a narrative in representation of scenes and incidents in ordinary life of a light or ludicrous character. The dramatic art among the Greeks aimed at producing an impre ion upon the spectators by three different means; which, according to modern phraseology, we may denominate poetical effect, dramatical effect, and theatrical effect. The poetry of the Greek drama was of the highest order; but it forms a topic to be considered apart. Dramatical effect is the proper subject of the dramatic art; and, in judging of the efforts of the Greek mind in this direction, we are a isted not only by the [s. 374]