12 



The Water Supply of Constantinople. 



cistern for the sake of maintaining its purity. In conse- 

 quence of this and the absence of coal smoke the water is 

 remarkably pure. 



When the American Eobert College was building last 

 year at Constantinople, under Dr. Hamlin's supervision, 

 his first care was to have a large cistern dug in its central 

 court, the building being more than 100 feet square. He 

 both saves the water of the roofs, and obtains the privilege 

 in winter of filling it from the aqueducts. It is large 

 enough and receives water enough for a three months 

 supply and with some to spare, for a family of two hundred 

 and fifty persons, through the period when there might not 

 have been a drop of rain. A well in addition has been 

 dug upon the premises, from which water may always be 

 obtained by means of a horse pump. 



In the vegetable gardens, water is drawn from wells 

 which are from 50 to 75 feet deep, and 20 feet diameter at 

 the bottom, by means of large water wheels with buckets, 

 which are turned by a horse, and occasionally one may 

 see the old fashioned well-sweep. 



In addition to the supply for houses from the aqueducts, 

 there is an arrangement for most of the larger houses in 

 the villages on the banks of the Bosphorus, which has not 

 been noticed by any travelers. The shores of the Bos- 

 phorus rise more or less precipitously to the hight of a 

 hundred feet or more, and then the land stretches out in 

 a plain. The owners of houses owning lands up the hills 

 funnel the rocky ledges a distance of from fifty to one 

 hundred and fifty feet, and construct receiving reservoirs in 

 the rock on the sides of the hills, and conducting the water 

 by means of cylindrical tiles down the hill from one reser- 

 voir to another, they obtain usually from the percolation 

 of the water through the slaty sandstone, or the flow from 

 the hollows in the plains above an abundant supply for the 

 year, available on every story of their houses. 



