780 



WATER SUPPLY. 



WEST INDIES. 



gallons. There are 56 miles of mains, 226 me- 

 ters, and 684 hydrants. 



Washington and (weorgetown, D. C. Works 

 were built in 1858-'59 by the United States Gov- 

 ernment. In 1863 Potomac water was intro- 

 duced. In 1882 Congress approved an act to 

 increase the water supply by extending the 

 Great Falls dam. building a large reservoir, and 

 connecting the old and proposed new reservoir 

 by a tunnel and laying proper distributing 

 mains from the new reservoir to the city. 

 All of this work has been done under the 

 direction of the United States engineers, and 

 was completed in 1888. The part of the sys- 

 tem outside of the city and for the supply of 

 the Government buildings is under the control 

 of the United States Government. The distri- 

 bution system is managed by the local authori- 

 ties. The supply is from the Potomac river by 

 gravity, with pumping to reservoir and direct 

 for high-service supply. A large dam across 

 the river, 17 miles from the city, forms an im- 

 pounding reservoir, from which an. aqueduct 

 conveys water 9 miles to a receiving reservoir, 

 and thence 2 miles to a distributing reservoir. 

 The new aqueduct tunnel conveys water nearly 

 4 miles to the new distributing reservoir. The 

 receiving reservoir has a capacity of 176,000,COO 

 gallons, arid the distributing reservoir 151,000.000 

 gallons. There is a 2,000,000- gallon Worthing- 

 ton pump at the Washington high-service sta- 

 tion, and 2 Holly-Gaskill pumps and boilers; 

 capacity in all, 5,000.000 gallons. The new res- 

 ervoir has a capacity of 800,000,000 gallons. 

 There are 215 miles of mains, 87 meters, and 

 1,080 hydrants. 



Wilmington, Del. Watei was first supplied 

 to this city in 1804 by the Wilmington Spring 

 Water Company, whose works were bought by 

 the borough in 1810 and extended from time to 

 time since, the more important changes being in 

 1864 and 1874. The first 'supply was from a 

 fountain on High (now Fourth) 'Street, which 

 furnished water to the part of the city lying 

 below, being conveyed through wooden pipes 

 along the principal streets to cisterns, from 

 which it was drawn by pumps. The present 

 supply is from Brandywine Creek, pumping to 

 low-service reservoir and repumping to high- 

 service reservoir. The pumping machinery in 

 the main works and high-service combined has 

 a capacity of 18,500,000 gallons. The principal 

 reservoir has a capacity of 40,000,000 gallons, 

 and the high-service of 1,600,000 gallons. ' There 

 are 75 miles of mains, 28 meters, and 636 hy- 

 drants. 



Worcester, Mass. The first supply of water 

 was in 1798, under a State charter^ from springs, 

 for domestic and fire purposes. In 1845 the 

 Worcester Aqueduct Company was incorporated, 

 taking its supply from Bell pond. In 1852 

 these works were bought by the city. Besides 

 these there were three other systems of supply 

 in 1865, when the city built the present works. 

 The supply is from impounding reservoirs in 

 Leicester and Holden by gravity. These have a 

 united capacity of 1,200,000,000 gallons. The 

 Lynde brook dam. in connection with the new 

 supply, has a history. On March 30. 1876, it 

 gave way, the water sweeping away the lower 

 gate house and the upper gate house with its 



heavy foundation wall, and leaving a final gap 

 in the dam 80 feet long, over 150 feet wide, and 

 20 feet deep. There having been a warning of 

 twenty-four hours, no loss of life occurred, but 

 the destruction of property including dams, 

 bridges, houses, and railroad embankments 

 caused a loss of at least $750,000. There are 118 

 miles of mains, 8,450 meters, and 1,009 hydrants. 



The total number of water works in the United 

 States is 2,037, divided as follows: New Eng- 

 land, 290; Middle, 498: South Atlantic. 106: 

 South Central, 70 :' North Central, 401 : North- 

 western, 301; Southwestern, 174; Pacific, 197. 

 Of these works, 878 are owned by the city or 

 town in which they are, and 1,159 "by companies 

 or individuals. The total cost of all the water 

 works in the United States was $542,770,143. 

 The total number of miles of mains is 32,428. 

 The capital invested is equal to one tenth that 

 invested in railways, and the number of miles of 

 mains is one filth the number of miles of rail- 

 road track. The State of Rhode Island has 

 nearly twice as much invested in water works as 

 it has in railroads, and the New England States, 

 as a whole, nearly one fourth as much. 



WEST INDIES, an archipelago dividing 

 the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean, the 

 islands of which, except the Spanish Antilles 

 (see CUBA AND PUERTO Rico) and the island of 

 Hayti (see HAYTI and SANTO DOMINGO), are occu- 

 pied as colonies of Great Britain, France, Den- 

 mark, and the Netherlands, though inhabited 

 almost entirely by people of negro or mixed 

 blood, the descendants of former slaves. 



British Colonies. The British colonies are 

 Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbadoes, Trinidad, and 

 the Leeward and Windward Islands. Jamaica, 

 with an area of 4.193 square miles, had in 1892 a 

 population of 657,461, not including the de- 

 pendencies of Turk's Islands and Cayman 

 Islands, which have an area of 448 square miles 

 and 9,066 inhabitants. The Governor is Sir 

 Henry Arthur Blake. The attendance in the 

 schools in 1892 averaged 45,927. The capital is 

 Kingston, with 45,542 inhabitants. There were 

 10,116 East Indians in the colony, of whom 7,223 

 were indentured laborers. The number of mar- 

 riages in 1892 was 3,405; of births, 24,744; of 

 deaths, 14,711 ; excess of births, 10,033. 



The chief products are sugar, rum, coffee, 

 bananas, cocoanuts, fruits, and vegetables. The 

 imports in 1892 were valued at 1,941,000, and 

 exports at 1,760,000. The treasury receipts wen- 

 713,000. and expenditures 735,000. The debt 

 is 1,524,000. There are 89 miles of railroad 

 and 695 miles of telegraph. The number of dis- 

 patches in 1892 was 102,925. The post office 

 carried 2,760,617 letters. The shipping numbers 

 401 sailing vessels, of 112,496 tons, and 341 

 steamers, of 480,611 tons. The West India regi- 

 ments in Jamaica in 1894 had a strength of 1,638 

 officers and men. 



The Governor of Barbadoes is Sir J. S. Hay. 

 The area is 166 square miles; population, 182,- 

 306. The revenue in 1892 was 153,000 ; expend- 

 iture, 199,000. The imports were 1,OSM.- 

 000 in value, and the exports 927.000. The 

 garrison in 1894 was 40 officers and 818 men. 



The Governor of Trinidad is Sir F. Napier 

 Broome. The area is 1,754 square miles ; the 

 population in 1892 was 210,541. Tobago, with 





