LXXX. DISCUSSION. 
that if 10 HP were required to lift a given quantity of water the 
first stage from tank to tank, the same amount of power would 
suffice for the second stage, and 300 HP would raise the load to 
the top? The percentage of efficiency would be unaltered, what- 
ever the number, with similar pumps, similar engines, and similar 
heights. Such being the case, there does seem scope for the 
design of a pump in which the thirty vanes might be all arranged 
in one casing, producing a machine something after the manner 
of the ‘‘ Parson’s” steam turbine, with reversed action, so that 
instead of thirty pumps 30’ apart, with their respective deliveries 
and following suction pipes connected by tanks, we might have 
one machine. 
With regard to the author’s statement that fly-wheel pumps do 
not give quite as good results per 1 HP as direct-acting ones, 
owing to the extra friction of the moving parts, there was plenty 
of scope for difference of opinion. The Leavitt pumps recently 
constructed by The Blake Co. for the Boston, Mass., waterworks, 
gave 140 million duty, and they can no doubt keep that up and 
drive a fly-wheel too. Rotative engines always give full stroke 
to their pump pistons. It is possible that the efficiency of rotative 
pumping engines may be still further increased by putting the 
fly-wheel shaft on roller bearings. Having used roller bearings 
for many years, and seen the efficiency of machines increased from 
55, to 85% by their introduction, there did not seem to be any in- 
superable objection to their introduction into pumping machinery. 
Direct acting pumps seldom, if ever, work the full stroke they are 
supposed to do, after their trial is over; rotative pumps are obliged 
to do so. 
As the title of the paper was “ Low” lift pumping machinery, 
the discussion had perhaps strayed a little away from the core of 
the subject, and he would conclude by saying that the ideal pump 
for low lifts would probably be found to be in the nature of the 
“Downton” or “Stone” pump, with one or two valve pistons 
working in one barrel, but so arranged and connected to the motive 
power that the speed of the flow of the water would be uniform, 
