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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL, 



[Janoaby, 



others, beneficial in grazing or falling cattle. Provision should also be 

 made for rendering the feeding houses perfectly dark for an hour or so after 

 feeding time, in order that the cattle may take their rest. Cramming may 

 thus be introduced into cattle feeding, as has long been practised with 

 ortolans, poultry, &c. 



For tills purpose a portable steam-engine is preferred (with fixed barn 

 machinery, &;c.) on account of its being applicable to more than one set of 

 buildings, which will render it less expensive, and also more adapted to meet 

 the possible contingency of steam ploughing, and being sent to the factory 

 to be repaired, thus avoiding the nuisance of having mechanics on their 

 premises, or it can further he supplied by a travelling or club engine. There 

 is the corn barn open at each end, with a railway running through it, upon 

 which stacks are to he liuilt upon staddle-frames running upon wheels, 

 instead of standing as heretofore upnn fixed piers or pedestals, and as many 

 staddlcs are to be provided as the probable number of stacks. A stack is to 

 be built on these staddle-frames, upon any part of the railway, and can be 

 run into the barn at night, and remain there under cover until is thatched, 

 which it is obvious can be done either in wet or dry weather. As soon as it is 

 thatched, it is to be run through the barn, a sufficient distance out of the 

 way, and another staddle-frame is to be brought empty from the cross line, 

 and a stack built thereon as before. .\s soon as it is ascertained that the 

 barn will contain the remainder of the crop, it can be filled in the usual 

 way, and of course this last must be thrashed out first; afterwards the stacks 

 on the staddles can be introduced into the barn, and thrashed by alike pro- 

 cess. The length of railway will be limited by the locality and expense, but 

 it must be of sufficient length to admit of two or more kinds of corn being 

 stationed on either side, so that any particular stack can be thrashed when 

 wanted, by running all those before out of the way; as it is intended to have 

 the rails perfectly level, but little power will be required to do this. Hay 

 stacks may also be stationed on close boarded siaddles at one end of the line, 

 and can afterwards be brought into the barn when they are required to feed 

 the hay cutter, being thus under cover during the time it would otherwise 

 be partially exposed to the weather. 



THE WATER MONOPOLY AND THE SANITARY 

 MOVEaiENT. 



The subject of the water monopoly is now attracting so much 

 attention as to induce tlie Times to devote to it its valuable co- 

 lumns, and the following forms part of a series of excellent articles, 

 evidently from a man of knowledge and ability : — 



In the year 1580 Peter Morrys, a Dutchman, came to the Lord Mayor of 

 London, and declared himself the inventor of a plan for making the Thames 

 water, by its own force, flow upward to the tops of the highest houses in 

 the city. The supply of water being at that time excessively scanty, and the 

 population rapidly augmenting, permission was granted to this daring 

 schemer to try his experiment at bis own risk. He stipulated for a lease of 

 the first arch on the north side of old London-bridge, which was granted to 

 him for 500 years, at a nominal rent of 10s. per aniium, and he proceeded 

 forthwith to erect his machinery. He set to work with such vigour that, a 

 few months afterwards, the inhabitants of that part of the town were asto- 

 nished one day to see a column of water rising into the air, and thrown 

 completely over the steeple of St. Magnus Church. The lord mayor and 

 aldermen came down to witness this experiment, the like of wliich had 

 never before been known in England. The pipes of elmwood laid along 

 Thames-street, Fish-street-hill, and Gracechurch-street, with their valves to 

 prevent the reflux of the up-forced water, and their small leaden branches 

 ramifying to the bouses on either side, came in for a full share of admiration ; 

 and it would be difficult to exaggerate the joy of the fortunate householders 

 in that neighbourhood at finding the water, which they had been accustomed 

 toilsomely to fetch from the Wall-brook hard by, or to draw up with bucket 

 and windlass from wells, now gushing spontaneously into their abodes, and 

 let in or shut oft" as required, by the mere turning of a stopcock. We 

 gather from ancient records of William the Conqueror's time, that the Lon- 

 don water-sources of that period were, the Thames on the south, the subur- 

 ban fountains on the north, such as Clerk's-well, Holy-well, Clement's-well, 

 &c. ; and in the heart of the city several brooks and bourns which rose from 

 those fountains and ran southward to the Thames — the Wall-brook, for in- 

 stance, the Long-bourn, the Old-bourn, and tlic Rivulet of the Wells; to which 

 springs and streams the Londoners then resorted after the fashion of simple 

 villagers, with pail and pitcher for their supplies. 



The artificial conduit system appears to have originated in London towards 

 the middle of the 13th century. For, in 1235, when the encroachment of 

 buildings and the heightening of the ground had spoiled or dried up these 

 fountains and rivulets, causing a dearth of water, while the rapid growth of 

 the population still further increased, we find the Lord Mayor and Common- 

 alty, at the request of King Henry HI., engaged in bringing fresh supplies to 

 the city from the town of Tyburn by six-inch pipes of lead, and setting 

 about the erection of a great stone cistern, lined with lead and handsomely 

 castellated, for the public use, in Westchcap. This, the " Great Conduit," 

 as It was called, was the first of its kind in London, and its tedious and ex- 

 pensive construction occupied 50 years. The pipes from this watercourse 



were subsequently extended eastward, to supply other cisterns which were 

 established successively in Fleet-street, Aldermanhury, and at divers other 

 points of the town. As the population ontgrew these supplies, the springs 

 of Highbury (1-138), Paddington (1-139), Hackney (1535), and Hampstead 

 (1589), were successively laid under contribution, and brought in earthen 

 pipes, " brick drains," or tubes of lead, to the several standards or conduits, 

 as they were called, in Oldborne (Holborn), Eoldgate (Aldgate), Cripplegate, 

 Bishopsgate, &c. 



These particulars give some idea of the solicitude felt from the earliest 

 times to secure a good water supply for the metropolis. And, if we picture 

 the water-carriers, stooping at the riverside, clustered round the public tank, 

 or bearing away on head or shoulder their replenished tankards — wide-bot. 

 tomed, narrow-mouthed vessels, hooped like a pail, and fitted with a cork or 

 bung — wc shall have a tolerably complete notion of the ancient London 

 water service. 



The conservancy customs of those early times are vividly pictured by 

 Maitland, who describes the mayor and aldermen riding forth on horseback, 

 with their ladies following in wagons, to take their annual survey of the 

 conduits; after which they used to hunt the hare across the neighbouring 

 fields ; then dine with the chamberlain ; after dinner go to hunting the fox ; 

 and after " great hallooing at his death, and blowing of homes," ride back 

 through London to the Mansion-house. 



The invention of the lift-pump (in 1425) might have been expected, by 

 facilitating the raising of water, to improve in some degree the semi-bar- 

 barous state of the city. But the pump shared the common fate of useful 

 inventions, always slow, — and especially slow in tliose days — to win popular 

 acceptance ; and, moreover, the cost of setting up an engine, then reckoned 

 so rare and intricate, operated as a further hindrance to its general intro- 

 duction. 



The success of his first water-wheel, which raised 216 gallons of water 

 per minute, induced Morrys to apply for a lease of the second arch of the 

 bridge, which was immediately granted by the corporation on the same pro- 

 digal terms as the first. Beneath this arch Morrys proceeded to erect a 

 second set of pumps and cisterns, with another water-wheel, by which 

 means, 158-1, he more than douliled his first supply. Our enterprising Dutch- 

 man, however, did not remain long without competitors. Within ten years 

 after Morrys set up his first wheel, one Bevis Bulmar erected a large horse 

 engine at Broken Wharf, in the city, and raised water through leaden conduit- 

 pipes for the supply of Cheapside, St. Paul's Churchyard, and the parts 

 adjacent, as far westward as Fleet-street. Anirual power had previously been 

 employed by the corporation to pump water to a standard on Dowgate-hill ; 

 but this mode of pumping proved too costly to be compatible with moderate 

 rates, and Bulmar, like several similar speculators on a smaller scale, was 

 ultimately ousted by the powerful competitor who next appeared in the field. 

 This was no other than the famous Sir Hugh Myddelton, a London gold- 

 smith, who, having enriched himself by fortunate raining speculations in 

 Wales, was emboldened by foregone success to adventure on novel hazards. 

 The project was, to cut a trench or watercourse large enough for the supply 

 of all London to any suitable spring that might be found within a circuit of 

 20 or 30 miles round the city. 



The conception, grand as it was, did not exceed the grievous necessities of 

 the time. For, the water supplied by Morrys from the Thames, besides 

 being limited in quantity, was often exceedingly turbid and foul ; and the 

 unspeakable squalor of the poor occasioned well-grounded apprehensions 

 that the plague, in those days a frequent sojourner in London, would renew 

 its dreaded visitation. Moved by such considerations, the corporation had 

 already, towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, obtained power from parlia- 

 ment to out a river for conveying water to the city from any part of Middle- 

 sex or Hertfordshire. This done, they had rested on their oars, with true 

 corporate procrastination, for six or seven years, — till, suddenly, in 1603, the 

 plague broke out, and raged with such virulence that in one week it carried 

 off upwards of 1,000 persons in the metropolis. Thus fearfully admonished, 

 the corporation sent surveyors to examine where water might be procured ; 

 and having, after much delay, fixed on the springs of Amwell and Chadwell 

 in Hertfordshire, 20 miles north of London, as sufficiently copious and pure 

 for their purpose, they obtained in 1600-7 a new act, authorising the convey- 

 ance of these waters by an aqueduct to the city. Then followed two more 

 years of vacillating delay ; and at length, in 1609, their courage failing them 

 after all, they made over to Myddelton, at bis instance, their power to con- 

 struct the New River, together with any profit that might accrue from the 

 enterprise. 



Myddelton immediately set to work, and soon found that he had under- 

 taken a very tough job. The undulations of the ground obliged our pro- 

 jector, for the even distribution of the fall, to give his channel a devious and 

 meandering course, nearly doubling the crow-flight estimation of its length, 

 and the computed cost of the work ; so that by the time Myddelton had 

 brought it to Enfield — just about half-way to London— his progress was 

 stopped by exhaustion of funds. The corporation, to whom in bis exigency 

 Myddelton applied for assistance, met him with a direct refusal : and King 

 James I., to whom he next applied, declined, with characteristic rapacity, to 

 afford him aid except on condition that a moiety of the concern should be 

 made over to him for his exclusive profit and emolument. To these hard 

 terms Myddelton perforce acceded ; and, resuming his operations with his 

 wonted energy, finally completed the work in 1613, twelve months before the 

 expiration of the term allotted by the corporation for its achievement. 



