THE IKRIGATION AGE. 



273 



PUMPING WATER IN MEXICO. 



Primitive Devices That Have Remained in Use Even to the 

 Twentieth Century. 



Mexico, so near to and yet so far from the United 

 States and our progressive cities and farmlands, only 

 within recent years is beginning to feel the iron grip 

 of progress struggling with her shackels and seeking 

 to strike them away. Among the ancient and pictur- 

 esque devices, says Popular Mechanics, still in general 

 use in that country are the "pumping engines" for ele- 

 vating water. 



Some of these machines are shown in the accompa- 

 nying illustrations. In the first one it will be noticed 

 that but one man is required to keep the wheel with its 



CURRENT WHEELS: THEIR USE IN LIFTING 

 WATER FOR IRRIGATION.* 



CONSTRUCTION OF CURRENT WHEELS. 



The practical experience of many irrigators in the 

 construction and use of current wheels has been col- 

 lected and is here presented as an answer to inquiries 

 regarding their cost and efficiency. 



In its simplest form a; current wheel consists of 

 a large skeleton roller made of wood, with paddles pro- 

 jecting beyond its rim. It is hung on a shaft and 

 supported at both ends by piers or posts, so as to allow 

 the wheel to dip into the water to the width of the 

 paddles. The simplest device for raising water with 



HOW WATER IS PUMPED IN MEXICO. 



Courtesy Henry R. Worthmgton. 



continuous chain of buckets in motion, and the work 

 is not so strenuous but that he can bear the warmth 

 of full garb, while in another two men clinging to a 

 sapling placed above the wheel are required to generate 

 the power, and are working without shirts. The fact 

 that one is subjected to the glare of the sun, while the 

 others are protected from it by trees may account for 

 this difference in the amount of clothing worn, however. 

 The other devices are so familiar in one form or another 

 to every one that a glance explains them. 



Modern type irrigation pumps of the turbine pat- 

 tern are now rapidly replacing these quaint devices. 

 Power is cheaply developed by utilizing the many 

 mountain streams for generating electric current, and 

 then distributing it over the vast agricultural areas 

 lying between the mountain chains. 



such a wheel is a row of buckets placed on the rim 

 so as to fill at the bottom of the wheel amd empty into 

 a trough near the top. A more complicated way is to 

 connect the wheel to chain and bucket gear, or to a 

 pump of some sort. These more difficult methods of 

 construction are necessary in all cases where it is de- 

 sired to raise the water to a height greater than the 

 diameter of the wheel used. 



THEORY OF POWEE IN CURRENT WHEELS. 



While a home made undershot water wheel devel- 

 ops but little of the power in a running stream, still 

 the action of the crudest wheel is governed by certain 

 principles, an understanding of which will aid the 

 builder in improving the design of his wheel, thereby 

 increasing its efficiency. 



* Courtesy U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



