CHAPTER XXXIV 

 PUMPS, AND THEIR VALUE TO MAN 



" As difficult as for water to run up a hill ! " Is there any 

 one who has not heard this saying ? 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 

 and 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 beas or wells. But 

 before this underground oil can 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- 

 surd if employed on our huge vessels of war and commerce. 

 A rent in the ship's side would mean inevitable loss, were 



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