PUMPING WATERS. 67 



hardened. The pump rod is best made of copper, 

 while a copper air vessel and a draw-off cock complete 

 the apparatus. As has already been stated, when the 

 water so pumped is for drinking purposes only, this 

 draw-off cock should be the only means of getting 

 such water, but in small houses a supply has to be 

 fed to the storage cistern, and in all cases it should go 

 as directly as possible to the cistern laid inside the 

 house in a wooden casing filled with saw-dust, and 

 inside walls are preferable to outside ones for the pur- 

 pose. It is always a wise precaution, when the pump 

 does deliver into a tank, to open the draw-off cock 

 before proceeding to pump potable water until it 

 ceases to flow ; this will show that the rising pipe is 

 empty and that no stale water will be drawn off. 

 Another form of pump which needs little or no des- 

 cription is the old-fashioned horse pump. This type 

 of pump is not usually put down now, but briefly it 

 consists of an ordinary two-cylinder well pump fixed 

 in the ordinary manner, the motive power being im- 

 parted by a horse moving round in a circle of about 

 12 feet radius. At the centre of this circle is a pivot 

 turning on a vertical axis and having attached to it a 

 long pole to which the horse is harnessed, and a spur 

 wheel which engages with a pinion on the horizontal 

 shaft of the pump. The machine at the best is never 

 very efficient, and usually meets with more abuse than 

 other kinds of pumping machinery. Moreover, 

 owners of horses have frequently informed the writer 

 that this class of work is harmful to horses. Having 

 thus described the two most usually found of the old 

 types of pump, we proceed to investigate more 

 modern and economical methods of raising water. 



