catch-water

The engines have cylinders of twelve feet diameter, and are capable of lifting 2,000,000 tons of water in twenty-four hours from the depth of seventeen feet to the level of the _boezem_, or catch-water basin, of the district.

Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 Various

Whether, in a particular case, a header alone will be sufficient to cut off the flow of water from the higher land, or whether, in addition to the header, an open catch-water may be required, must depend upon the quantity of water likely to flow through or upon the land.

Farm drainage The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land with Stones, Wood, Plows, and Open Ditches, and Especially with Tiles Henry Flagg French

To arrest the flow of mere surface water, an open ditch, or catch-water, is the most effectual, as well as the most obvious mode.

Farm drainage The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land with Stones, Wood, Plows, and Open Ditches, and Especially with Tiles Henry Flagg French

Then a catch-water open drain, just at the junction of the high and low land, entirely round the swamp, will be necessary to intercept the water flowing into the swamp.

Farm drainage The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land with Stones, Wood, Plows, and Open Ditches, and Especially with Tiles Henry Flagg French

The reason why the drains are filled with gravel is, that as the soft clay, in which the tiles were laid, could never have the heat of the direct rays of the sun on its surface, there might be no cracking of it, sufficient to afford passage for the water, and so this was made a catch-water to stop any water that might attempt to cross it.

Farm drainage The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land with Stones, Wood, Plows, and Open Ditches, and Especially with Tiles Henry Flagg French

As this was designed for a catch-water, and not merely to take in water at the bottom, in the usual way, we filled the trench, after covering the tiles with tan, with coarse sand above the level of the clay, and put clay upon the top.

Farm drainage The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land with Stones, Wood, Plows, and Open Ditches, and Especially with Tiles Henry Flagg French

The influence of the old rules for making surface or "catch-water" drains lasted for a long time, and there was a general tendency to make tile drains follow the same directions.

Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health 1865

To them is attributed the car-dyke, or catch-water drain, which runs for many miles from Peterborough northward into Lincolnshire, cutting off the land waters which flow down from the wolds above.

Prose Idylls, New and Old Charles Kingsley 1847

Abstain, and you're a drink-water (not a catch-water nor yet a spurnwater, which are both kinds of ship's scuppers).

VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol V No 1 1987