The Water Supply of Constantinople. 



13 



There is a fountain on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus 

 at Beikos, which is day and night pouring out four inch 

 streams of water, from several brass pipes. This water 

 filled into barrels is floated down the current in barges for 

 the wants of all the shipping and the Imperial fleet. In 

 fact, if Constantinople were only attacked by land, the 

 supply of water from this and other magnificent and in- 

 exhaustible springs on the eastern side of the Bosphorus 

 would be abundant for its wants. 



The facts already mentioned give a general view of the 

 nature of the arrangements of the water supply for Con- 

 stantinople. There are still some additional observations 

 worthy to be made, if they have not already suggested 

 themselves to your minds. 



1. The catchment basins receive water from only a 

 very limited surface. As it can be traced upon the map, 

 it extends to a very small number of square miles. 



2. The sides of the hills are all covered with forests of 

 oak and chestnut, and also far beyond the spots whence 

 any water could flow to the reservoirs. This devoting so 

 large a space to forest wildness within ten miles of a million 

 of inhabitants is no mystery to the people. It is the result 

 of a custom, and a stringent law enforced for 1,500 years, 

 and not a new discovery. The edicts of the Greek em- 

 perors were very early issued requiring the planting of 

 trees and forbidding any person other than the authorities 

 to cut down a single tree, and the Turks enforce the same 

 law. There may be, there are differences of opinion as to 

 the physical laws by which the perpetuation of forests se- 

 cures rain and preserves moisture, but there is no difference 

 as to the fact that with the devastation of the forest on the 

 hill-side, the usual and regular flow of water is greatly di- 

 minished. The subject is discussed in more than 200 pages 

 in Marsh's Man and Nature, in which is a compilation 

 from many authors on the influence of denudation on the 



