Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An intermittent spring in the Cretaceous, and especially in the Lower Greensand; a channel filled at a time of excessive rainfall, when the plane of saturation of the chalk rises to a higher level than usual.
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mollusque commented on the word nailbourne
The visible sources of the Dour are at Bushey Rough and Watersend at ordinary periods, but after periods of heavy rainfall an intermittent spring, or nailbourne, known as the Drellingore, rises and flows over the surface of the ground, following the line of the valley from Lower Standen to Bushey Rough, where it joins the normally visible source.
--Henry Edward Stilgoe, 1908, Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 172: 269
November 17, 2008