A treatise on waterworks for the supply of cities and towns : with a description of the principal geological formations of England as influencing supplies of water / by Samuel Hughes.

  • Hughes, Samuel.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on waterworks for the supply of cities and towns : with a description of the principal geological formations of England as influencing supplies of water / by Samuel Hughes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    more hours of the day than a square or circular section. Con- flicting opinions are also entertained as to the date of the well. The common people of Egypt ascribe it to the patriarch Joseph. Many antiquarians, however, are inclined to imagine the well to be of much more recent date ; some ascribing it to the famo'us Saladin of the Crusades, whose real name was Yussef (or Joseph) ; while others believe it was made by a vizier named Joseph about 800 years ago. The celebrated well of Memzem at Mecca dates, according to popular tradition, from a higher antiquity even than Jacob's Well, being in fact venerated as the well from which Hagar nourished the ancestor of the Arabian people ; the construction of the well itself being attributed to Abraham and Isaac. The oasis of Thebes contains Artesian wells, which have been noticed by Arago. The practice of the ancient inhabit- ants was to dig square wells 60 to SO yards in depth, through the superficial vegetable soil, clay, and marl, down to the lime- stone rocks, in which borings 4 to 8 inches in diameter were then made. These holes were fitted with a block of sandstone, which was furnished with an iron ring, and was used to stop the supply when necessary. OTHER ANCIENT MODES OF COLLECTING WATER. Although the very earJiest people appear to have procured water chiefly from wells of various kinds, and sometimes from reservoirs and cisterns formed at spring heads to collect the water, it is evident that in process of time these means would be- come inadequate, and the wants of increasing populations con- centrated in towns would require other modes of supply. Hence we find that aqueducts were used for conveying water into towns from a very remote period of history. It is probable that the great canals and lakes of which traces still exist in Egypt were used as reservoirs for storing the waters of the Nile in times of flood, in order that they might be used for irrigating the land during dry seasons. The great aqueducts, reservoirs, and other hydraulic works of ancient