ON TREE-THUNK WATER-PIPES. 



65 



many otlier wooden pipes long after they would otherwise have 



become useless. Buckland adds in a note : — 



" I learn that the fashion of pollarchng, or cutting off the branches of elm trees 

 in the nciglibourhood to make them grow tall and straight, arose from the former 

 demand for their stems, cut into lengths, and bored throughout to make pipes to 

 conduct water. I have frequently seen these in the London streets when the 

 workmen have been making excavations for repairs." 



[Mr. J. M. Wood has presented a fine specimen of a wooden 

 water-main, formerly employed by the New River Company, to 

 the Epping Forest Museum, a drawing of which is given (Fig. 2). 

 It is an elm trunk 9ft. y\n. in length, 6ft. in circumference at the 

 larger, and 2ft. 3in. at the smaller end. The trunk has been 

 tapered at one foot from the end, and the diameter at that end 

 is 7 inclies ; at the larger end 10 inches ; so that two similar pipes 

 could be easily fitted together. At the larger end an iron ring 



FCET. 



FIG. 2. — WATER-PIPE MADE FROM AN ELM TRUNK. 



New River Company. 



Now in Epping Forest Museum. 



has been inserted in the wood, so as to prevent splitting when 

 another pipe was wedged in. The bore is very straight, and 

 very perfectly circular in section, making allowances for the 

 natural decay of the wood. It is a matter of curious conjecture 

 how such long and perfect " bores " in a solid tree-trunk could 

 have been made. We have been assured by an engineer that 

 even now, with the aid of steam power, such drilling would be 

 difficult, and in pre-steam days much more so. At present we 

 have no information on this point — Ed.] 



Tree-trunk pipes, being both ancient and modern appliances, 

 when seen, being exposed by accident, not by design, and being 

 invisible, when in use, have attracted scarcely any attention 

 from archaeologists. I found, however, in the Journal of the 

 British Avchcsological Association for 1873 (Vol. 29, pp. 1 84-- 186) 



