\\.\TKk SUPPLY FOR COUNTRY HOUSES. 79 



and farmyards, Ilirsc may be relied upon to furnish a fair supply of good water. Such a bed may IK- teMed 

 by driving down a perforated pointed &quot; driven well,&quot; and if this test-well shows that the water i-. within 

 pump-suction reach of the surface, a number of these wells may be driven at 2oft. or .jol t. intervals along 

 a given line and all coupled to one suction pipe. Such single wells, only 2111. diameter, will often yield 

 sufficient water for a large house, and may be pumped by wind or by petrol engine or by suction-gas plant, 

 and engine. \Vhcn the water-bearing rock is deeper, a bored tube-well must be drilled. TheM- vary 

 in this country from 5oft. to i,2ooft. in depth, a usual depth being looft. to jooft. The smallest practical 

 si/.e is ;iu., but about .\\i\. is a better minimum diameter. A .(in. well will contain a 2 : , in. diameter 

 pump capabU 1 of raising joogal. to .joogal. per hour, and so may be quite Mit ticienl tor a large IIOIIM-. 

 Should the boring prove &quot; artesian &quot; or the water rise over the surlace, a 4Jn. bore-hole into a lively yielding 

 rock will yield a How of as much as I2,ooogal. per hour from a depth of I5oft., with a very few tee) ol head 

 of overflow. With a loft, head a din. bore-hole I/oft, deep has been known to yield ,;o,ooogal. per hour. 

 I lowever, the question of well-sinking is of less importance than that of pumping, for the pumps will always 

 be an expense, and a well-made bore-hole has a long life. Lucky is the man whoM.: bore-hole overflows. 

 He can lead the water into a tank and control the How by a ball-valve, and he can employ the &amp;gt;implc&amp;gt;t 

 lorm of pump to raise a supply to the house cisterns. If the water rises nearly to the surface, an ordinary 

 pump will draw it, down to, say, 2oft., easily. Il much water is required and the depth is beyond pump- 

 suction, the fullest possible yield of a well can be secured by means of the compressed air-lilt pump. This 

 is more costly in power than an ordinal } pump, and is rarely to be advised lor any country house, for it 

 will usually give so very much more water than is required. To save wear and tear and trouble, it is 

 most desirable that a pump should be run slowly. A speed of twenty rotations per minute is ample for 

 country house work, with a stroke of iSin. Especially is this the case where the water-level is far down 

 the bore-hole and must be reached by a long single-barrel pump. Sometimes these pumps reach to 2oolt. 

 from the surface. II a house possesses its own electric-light plant, the well pump, whether a mere surface 

 pump or a deep pump, may be driven by an electric motor supplied with current trom the dynamo or t lu 

 st orage batteries. Such a pump may be placed a long way distant trom the source ot power, and may 

 be started and stopped by a switch in the power-house. The power required, allowing liberally for 

 friction, will be one sixteen hundredth of the gallons per minute multiplied by the total height to \\hii h 

 the water is raised. Thus, if ten gallons per minute are to be raised from looft. below the Mirlace to 

 a tank 5&amp;lt;&amp;gt;ft. up in a tower, the brake horse-power required is les&amp;gt; than one. When- electricity 

 is not available, an oil engine may be usefully employed. Such an engine will use crude petroleum, 

 or the cheap forms of lamp oil. and even the drainings ol heavy residual petrol from the carburettor 

 of the motor-car. The oil engine is sell- contained, easily attended to and will run lor hours without 

 attention. It may be used also lor other purposes, such as those ol the farm. Perhaps there i&amp;gt; no better 

 system of connecting the engine to the pump than by a leather belt and the usual fast-and-loose puliev-. 



In cheapness of fuel probably nothing exceeds the gas engine drawing its gas supply from a suction- 

 gas producer. In this cast- the fuel is anthracite or broken gas coke. and. with an automatic fuel-feed 

 to the producer, very little attention is required. Perhaps the chief difficulty with motive power by 

 gas or oil is that usually the power required by the pump is much less than the smallest really satisfactory 

 gas producer or oil engine will give. Thus a 5 h.p. oil engine will work a deep well-pump foi quite a large- 

 public institution and still be loo large for its work. This raises the question of windmills. These 

 machines do not give very much power, nor are they very regular in their attendance to duty, being 

 dependent on the more or less capricious wind. Hut on an average they will work about eight hours per 

 day ; and if winds are so capricious that at any season there may be sometimes three days without wind 

 sufficient to turn the mill, then the tank ought to have at least four days capacity, so as to tide over the 

 idle periods. Considering the very small power required to pump water for even a large house, the economy 

 of fuel is by no means to be accounted of the first consideration. Very small suction-gas plants are apt 

 to be troublesome. Where a public supply of gas is available it is generally cheaper for private work 

 to use that gas in an engine than to manufacture producer gas. A small gas engine will run for 20 cubic 

 feet of ordinary lighting gas per hour per horse-power. The gas engine to use such gas can be bought 

 to work well down to sixes of half a horse-power, and no time is wasted in lighting up. Let the advantages 

 and disadvantages of each motive power be summed up. They are as follows : 



The Oil Engine. Advantages : Self-contained in small space. Fuel purchasable everywhere if cheap 

 lamp oils are used. Disadvantages : Time required to start. Small engines not easy to obtain. Makers 

 apt to push upon buyers engines much larger than the power actually needed; therefore, waste of fuel. 

 Small engines not very satisfactory. 



Suction Gas. Advantages : Very cheap in fuel per horse-power hour, and fuel usually easy to 

 obtain. Producer durable and engine works quietly with producer gas. Expense not great. Can 

 be used for other purposes of farm, etc. Disadvantages : Time required to light up. Small power plants 

 not very satisfactory. More or less constant attention needed to producer unless automatic feeder 

 employed. Space required much greater than with oil engine. A certain danger exists owing to the 



