Parkstone, Dorset
Nov[ember]r. 29th. 1901
Prof[essor]. W. F. Barrett
My dear Barrett
I have at length bought some land only 4 miles from here offering a most charming site for a house, and I am really (at my age!) going to build!
But there is no water laid on & the company want makes an [word illeg.] demand for "extending the mains". I should therefore prefer to have my own water, & write to ask you if you have the address of any relative "dowser" within a [2] moderate distance of this place. Even if the water should be laid on I should be glad of a surface supply to form ponds &c. for waterlilies. I fancy there must be water very near as there is a good deal of clay about on the surface or a few feet deep, and a surface supply however small would be most useful.
If permanent water can be had at a moderate depth I would put up a small windmill & force pump as I did at the first house I built, 30 years ago.
Believe me | Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]
Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP3622.3523)]
For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
Please cite as “WCP3622,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 1 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3622