Il8 NOTES OX WOODEN WATER-PIPES. 



*' I see the conducts are made of earthen jMpes, which I like fane better than 

 them of Leade, both for sweetnes and continuance under the ground." p. 85. 



From this we may gather tliat earthenware pipes (which are 

 no doubt meant by "earthen") were a comparative novelty, 

 and that wooden pipes were either altogether unknown to 

 Norden or that he did not consider them worth mention. 



I take the following quotation at second-hand from Gilbert 

 White's Selhorne (footnote to Pennant Letter VI.') 



"November 29, 1731, a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by 

 eleven the next morning, mostly melted away on the surfoce of the earth, except 

 in several places in Bushy Park, Avhere there were drains dug and covered with 

 earth, on which the snow continued to lie, whether those drains were full of water 



or dry ; as also' where elm-pipes lay under ground " — See 



Hale's Hcemastatics, p. 360. 



Much information regarding the use of elm-wood pipes by 

 the New River and other London water companies, their disad- 

 vantages, and the date of their replacement by iron pipes, may 

 be found in Matthews's HydrauUa (1830.) 



NOTES ON THE PRESENT-DAY USE OF 

 WOODEN WATER-PIPES. 



By E. DICK. Clacton College. 



IT may interest readers of Mr. Holmes' paper in the Essex 

 Naturalist {ante pp. 60-75) to hear that wooden water- 

 pipes are still largely used in certain country districts of 

 Switzerland. In my native village, which is situated in the 

 lower part of the Bernese " Emmenthal," the water is supplied 

 both by conduits and by pumps that are made of wooden 

 pipes. 



The water which feeds the " running fountains " comes from 

 a source about i^ miles distant. The pipes are exclusively made 

 of medium-sized unbarked Jftr-trunks, and from sixteen to twenty 

 feet long. In order to prevent their splitting, they are bound at 

 either end by iron bands ; iron bands are also driven inside 

 the aperture. I could not tell how long the pipes last, but I 

 remember that frequent repairs were necessary. 



As it is, of course, not possible to bend the pipes, " water- 

 chambers," i.e. square pits laid out with bricks or cement and 



aThis is really portion of one of Sir William Jardine's notes in his edition of Selborne 

 1853.— Ed. 



