340 QUARTERLY JOURNAL, 



These considerations induced me some months since to consider 

 whether a syphon might not be so constructed as to discharge water 

 at the summit of its curve, that is, at the highest point in the pipe 

 of which it should be constructed. The idea at first appeared some- 

 what absurd, as those who are acquainted with the operation of the 

 common syphon may suppose, inasmuch as in no point of a syphon 

 is there so strong a resistance to any force tending lo divert a por- 

 tion of the enclosed fluid from the pipe than at the summit of the 

 curve. The problem, however, is solved, and the contrivance which 

 has accomplished the solution has been tested, and proved perfectly 

 successful. The preponderance of the column of water in the longer 

 leg of a syphon, which I have recently laid from a well fourteen feet 

 deep, over into a neighboring ravine twenty-two feel deep, furnishes 

 a sufficient mechanical power to deliver about one-third of all the 

 water which enters the pipe at tlie bottom of the well, at the summit 

 of the curve, two feet above the mouth of the well The length of 

 the pipe which goes down into the ravine is about ten rods, more 

 than half of which distance it is laid in ground nearly level. The 

 shorter leg of the syphon descends perpendicularly into the well, 

 and is constructed of lead pipe of an inch calibre. At the summit of 

 this pipe, and connected also with the pipe which passes down the 

 hiU-side, is the apparatus for discharging the water, of such dimen- 

 sions that it might be enclosed in a cubical bo.x ten inches square. 

 I have omitted to mention that the pipe which passes into the ravine 

 is about three-fourths the calibre of that which descends into the well. 

 The amount of water discharged by the apparatus, two feet above 

 the level of ihe ground at the mouth of the well, through a half-inch 

 pipe with a free aperture, is a little more than a gallon per minute. 

 If the pipe is laid upon the ground, and its adjutage contracted by 

 a jet tube with an aperture of one-eighth of an inch in diameter, the 

 jet rises seven feet and a half above the mouth of the well ; with 

 another jet tube of one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, it rises 

 thirteen feet ; and with another of orve-twentielh of an inch diameter 

 of adjutage, between eighteen and nineteen feet. Indeed there is no 

 definite limit to the altitude to which water might be raised by this 

 method, if the size of the syphon be increased, and a sufficient 

 supply of water obtained for working it. 



It may appear incredible that a syphon can be so constructed that 

 no definite amount of pressure shall be sufficient to restrain the 

 escape of a portion of water from an opening in the summit of the 

 curve, while in the ordinary syphon, a very small aperture at that 

 point, communicating with the open air, destroys its action instantly ; 

 yet this apparatus demonstrates that it can be accomplished, by an 

 extremely simple and compact contrivance, and on any scale that 

 may be required, from a miniature model that will discharge its gill 

 per minute, to an engine that v«ill elevate a hogshead of water in 

 the same space of time. 



The apparatus is, moreover, so extremely durable, and so constant 



