210 On preventing t lie Freezing of I'Fafer in Pipes. 



out how principles already known, may be accommodated 

 to this useful end in every family, without material trouble 

 or expense. In mv family the invention has been in use 

 with the most satisfactory effect; and if it is duly made 

 known, I have no doubt but that the inconvenience which 

 families labour under from a want of water in winter, will, 

 in. a short time, be no longer known. The nuisance of 

 water-plugs in the streets will then be unnecessary, and the 

 accidents to which they lead, in consequence, avoided, as 

 well as the mischief arising from the bursting of pipes. 



It will be unnecessary to enter into an argument, in order 

 to prove that the freezing of water in pipes does not take 

 place while the current of the supply coittinves; the ge- 

 nerality of pipes known are at all limes full of ivater, and 

 it is when there is no current that the formation of ice takes 

 place. But if we prevent any water from remaining in the 

 pipes, after the current of the supply has subsided, it is ob- 

 vious that they cannot be frozen up. 



The efecfual viearis of preventing the freezing of ivater 

 in pipes, then, being to allow no water to remain in them, 

 we have only to Inquire whether a way of getting rid of this 

 waste water can be devised, sufficiently siniple and commo- 

 dious to be eligible for public adoption. 



Now it is known that bv tying up the ball-cock during a 

 frost the freezing up of pipes will often be prevented ; in 

 fact it will always be prevented where the main is higher than 

 the cistern or other reservoir, and the pipe is laid in a re- 

 gular inclination from one to the other, for then no water 

 can remain in the pipe: or if the main is lower than the 

 cistern, and the pipe regularly inclines, upon the supply's 

 ceasing, the pipe will inunedlatcly exhaust itself into the 

 main ; — but as it is scarcely practicable to preserve the 

 leaden pipes in an^absolute straight line, their inclination 

 must be rather considerable and uninterrupted, to ensure 

 the whole of the water's running oft'. 



These cases, however, arc comparatively but few; various 

 deflexions in laving of pipes are necessarily occasioned, 

 and many are capriciously formed by the workmen not pro- 

 ceeding on clear and regular principles. Thus, if the main 

 and the cistern are nearly on a level; but the pipe, passing 

 from one to the other, has materially to curve, to follow the 

 sloping of the road-way, or to be conducted (more readily per- 

 haps) beneath the arching of a cellar; it will be easily seen, 

 that the pipe must be alwavs full of water, as its v> hole course 

 is lower than both its openings. But if at the lowest part of 

 its course we make a small hole with an awl, a chamiel will 



be 



