USEFUL ARTS. 



CHAPTER X. 



WATER, AND MEANS OF PROCURING IT. 



The Necessity of Water to Man. — Composition of the Human Body. — Natural and 

 Artificial Distillation. — The Traveller's Tree. — Pitcher-plants and Monkey- 

 pots. — Stomach of the Camel, and its Analogy to the Honey-comb. — Dew- 

 drops. — Use of the Still at Sea. — Perspiration and its cooling Properties. — 

 The Turkish Bath. — Perfume and Ether Spray. — Condenser of the Low- 

 pressure Steam-engine. — The Dry and Wet Bulb Thermometer. — Ice pro- 

 duced in a red-hot Vessel. — Power of Water. — How Fountains are made. — 

 Modern System of Hydrants. — Hydraulic Mining. — The Victoria and 

 Niagara Falls. — Artesian Wells. — The Norton Tube, &c, in Abyssinia. — 

 ' The Water-ram and Spout-hole. 



TT has often been remarked that man can live a compara- 

 ■*- tively long time without solid food, providing that he can 

 only obtain water, of which the chief bulk of the human body is 

 made. Dying by thirst is a horribly painful death, but, 

 according to Mr. Mills, the ill-fated Australian traveller, 

 " starvation on nardoo (an innutritious plant) is by no means 

 unpleasant, but from the weakness one feels, and the utter 

 inability to move one's self." 



Those who have been shipwrecked, and unable to obtain 

 fresh water, have always found that the tortures of thirst were 

 infinitely harder to endure than those of hunger ; and the 

 reader will probably remember that those who perished in the 

 Black Hole of Calcutta owed their deaths chiefly to thirst, 

 their bodies being exhausted of moisture by the heat of the 

 room, and no fresh supply attainable. 



Civilisation especially shows itself in the way in which 

 water is brought within the reach of every one, even in the 

 most crowded of cities. The reader may probably call to 

 mind the wonderful aqueducts of ancient Rome, the gigantic 



