THE PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE 11 



feet, pipes protected from frost where they entered house, barn and 

 outbuildings, and we had water in abundance both summer and 

 winter at practically no cost after the expense of installation. 



Nearest Approach to a Perpetual Motion Machine. 



The ram, a small affair a few inches square and less than twenty- 

 five pounds in weight, was sunk in a dry, frost-proof well only eight 

 feet deep on a side hill, hence easily underdrained to get rid of 

 surplus water, a greater fall, we found, exerted too much pressure on 

 the mechanism. This and the little reservoir about a dozen feet 

 square and three feet deep were covered with planks and heaped 

 with straw or weeds for winter protection. Though we received at 

 the buildings with our lay-out less than one-tenth of the water t u at 

 passed through the pipes feeding the ram it proved more than suffi- 

 cient and shared honors with the five per cent, mortgage on the farm, 

 that worked day and night. House and barn tanks and cattle 

 troughs were always full and the overflow formed a safe shallow 

 skating rink for the children in winter and a duckling pond in sum- 

 mer, at one end of the roomy wire fence-enclosed poultry yard, and 

 the shallow water eased a bit the flurry and worry of the foster 

 mother hen. If the supply of water is small and the surplus has 

 sufficient fall, parallel lines can be laid starting from lower levels. 

 There's hardly a farm worthy the name that cannot have at moderate 

 cost a continual water supply without help of the exhausting pump 

 handle which should only be used to draw for drinking purposes 

 delicious cold water from that rock-dug well that, like pure butter 

 and milk, is the stock boast of the average farmer.* New valves 

 every two years costing but a trifle were the only expense. 



The water pipe connected with the refrigerator, and the ice rested 

 on a coil of quarter-inch pipe, thus supplying hygienic ice water. 

 Refrigerator drainage dripped into a dry well instead of a sewer gas- 

 packed cesspool. 



Sanitary Sewage System. 



What to do with sewage at first puzzled us, as it does everyone 

 in like surroundings. The solution was sanitary cesspools, made as 

 follows. 



A water-tight stone and cement tank five feet square and six 

 feet deep had two compartments, with overflow pipe controlled by 

 ball and cock and protected in a frost-proof mound. The valve 

 opened automatically, and the liquid contents of the second com- 

 partment discharged into three blind drains each about one hundred 

 feet long, placed two feet below the grass roots in an orchard 

 which sloped toward the west, thus escaping many a nipping frost. 

 The main compartment was cleaned each winter, and copperas or 



*On one of our farms we installed a double action ram, using the muddy water of a 

 running brook to force pure spring water to house and barns. 



