172 HAPPY INDIA 



get through. The pipe was made of long straight 

 iron bars laid round a ring inside. These iron bars 

 were placed an inch or more apart. Round the iron 

 bars on the outside was wound a copper wire of 

 trapezoidal section. The wire was wound under 

 tension, the distance between each spiral ring of 

 the wire and the one previously laid being from 

 one-eightieth to one-hundredth of an inch according to 

 the class of sand met with. These " pipe-strainers " 

 are made 10 inches diameter in convenient lengths 

 joined together so that they would reach to a depth 

 of about 155 feet ; 120 feet of this pipe-strainer, 

 with a water slit, say, 2,000 feet in length, will permit 

 the passage of 2 cubic feet of water per second with 

 a head of 14 feet of water outside (a 7-foot head gives 

 I cubic foot, a 2i-foot head 3 cubic feet per second). 

 Two cubic feet a second is equal to 750 gallons of 

 water a minute. A brick well is sunk 22 feet, and 

 a turbine or centrifugal pump is placed in the top 

 of the tube near the bottom of the brick-walled well. 

 Sixteen of these wells have been sunk, but enough 

 has not yet been done to materially affect the sub- 

 soil water-level in the Amritsar district, but as the 

 work is extended no doubt the desired effect will 

 be produced. 1 The pumps are worked by electric 



1 Major John Ashford, writing from Amritsar on the iyth May, 

 1922, says the subsoil water level is now about 10 feet lower than in 

 some previous years, partly he thinks due to a poor monsoon in 1920 

 and poor winter rains, but partly due to his pumps, which he estimates 

 have effected a lowering of the water level of about 5 feet. 



He says his pumps are now largely used in many parts for raising 

 water (from sandy ground) for water supply for irrigation and for 

 general purposes. 



