CHAPTER XVIII 



PUMPS AND THEIR VALUE TO MAN 



181. "As difficult as for water to run up a hill!" Is 

 there any one who has not heard this saying ? And yet 

 most of us accept as a matter of course the stream which 

 gushes from our faucet, or give no thought to the ingenuity 

 which devised a means of forcing water upward through 

 pipes. Despite the fact that water flows naturally down hill, 

 and not up, we find it available in our homes and office 

 buildings, in some of which it ascends to the fiftieth floor ; 

 and we see great streams of it directed upon the tops of 

 burning buildings by firemen in the streets below. 



In the country, where there are no great central pumping 

 stations, water for the daily need must be raised from wells, 

 and the supply of each household is dependent upon the 

 labor anxl foresight of its members. The water may be 

 brought to the surface either by laboriously raising it, bucket 

 by bucket, or by the less arduous method of pumping. 

 These are the only means possible ; even the windmill does 

 not eliminate the necessity for the pump, but merely replaces 

 the energy used by man in working it. 



In some parts of our country we have oil beds or wells. 

 But if this underground oil is to be of service to man, it must 

 be brought to the surface, and this is accomplished, as in the 

 case of water, by the use of pumps. 



An old tin can or a sponge may serve to bale out water 

 from a leaking rowboat, but such a crude device would be ab- 



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