NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 



135 



Method of Boring W^ooden Water Pipes in the 

 Seventeenth Century. — Mr. Eliot Howard has obligingly 

 called attention to a passage in Evelyn's Sylva, describing the 

 method of boring elm-trunks for water-pipes, and he has sent a 

 copy of the book, so that the accompanying photographic re-pro- 

 duction of the original copper-plate engraving could be made. 

 The extracts are from the 3rd edition (1679) ^^ ^^^® book, 

 Chap. XXX., page 195 : — ^ 



<« . . . But I pursue these Instances no H^rther, concluding this Chapter 

 with the Norivay Engine or Saw-Mill, to be either moved with the force of 

 Water or Wind, etc., for the more expedite cutting and converting of Timber^ to 

 which we will add another, for the more facile perforation and boring of Elms, or 



'* " .. — """ vr:-TTilii.nu.n.: 



L 



Other Timber to make Pipes and Aqttceducts, and the excavating of column, to 

 preserve their shafts from splitting, to which otherwise they are obnoxious. 

 [Then follows a description and plate of the Norway Saw-Mill. J . . . The 

 second figure for Bot ing consists of an Ax-tree, to which is fastened a wheel of 

 six and thirty teeth, or more, as the velocity of the water-motion requires ; for if 

 it be slow more teeth are requisite ; there must also be a Pinion oisix, turn'd by 

 the said indented Wheel. Then to the ax-tree of the Pinion is to be fixt a long 

 Auger ^ as in the letter A,^ which must pass through the hole B, to be opened and 

 clos'd as occasion, somewhat like a Turner'' s Lathe; the Tree or piece of Timber 

 to be Bored, is to be placed on the Frame C D, so as the Frame may easily slide 

 by the help of certain small Wheels, which are in the hollow ot it, and turn upon 

 strong Pins, so as the Work man shove forward, or draw the Tree back, after 

 'tis fastened to the Fraine ; that so the Auger turning, the end of the Tree may 



1 Sylva, Or a Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties 

 Dominions. . . . Third Edition. By John Evelyn Esq., Fellow of the Royal Society. 

 London. Printed for John Maityn, Printer to the Royal Scciety, and are to be sold at the 

 Bell in St. Paul's Churchyard. MDCLXXIX. 



2 The lettering does not appear on the engraving. 



