Water For Men, Beasts And Plants

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 14 September 1940, Page 7 (Supplement)

Water For Men, Beasts And Plants

Whenever man has made- a settlement he has first made certain of an adequate water supply. If he has not done so the scheme has been doomed from the outset to failure. \Vithout water it W9uld foe impossible to sustain life. Apart from this primal importance water has scores of other uses in the domestic and industrial life of a community.

In earlier times before the advent of the iron tank the village pump supplied the needs of many a hamlet or town. Isolated homesteads had wells of their own or got their water from streams or springs. Wells had a prominent part in the lives of Bihle people and they are still a most necessary feature in the lands of the Bi'lile, even though modern irrigation schemes have been developed in different regions.

One of the best known is the great irrigation works whicli include the Assouan Dam. This dam has been enlarged by several additional and subsidiary works completion and is supplemented by an even larger dam on the Blue Nile at Sennar. It has assured a livelihood for thousands who would otherwise have lived in direst poverty.

snows in the mountains where the Nile and its tributaries have their sources the mighty river floods. Water that would run to waste is imprisoned behind the dams to be used through the dry seasons. Many of India's great dams store water from the inonsoonal rains. These dams feed irrigation canals ami channels that have increased the fertility of thousands of acres of land. The United States of America have some marvellous irrigation systems which have enabled settlers to bring millions of acres of desert and semi-desert land under cultivation. One of the most recently completed is the Boulder Dam, where a power house generates electricity and the masonry of the dam holds in check a large artificial lake on the Colorado River. There are others of immense size in this progressive land. The Roosevelt Dam in Arizona is one of the biggest in the world. There is the Arrowneck Storage Dam in Idaho, whose masonry is nearly as high as St. Paul's Cathedral.

The Assouan Dam, like many other great water works, has been built to conserve surplus water due to seasonal flooding. Every summer after the melting of the

Water Conservation And Supply

The maintenance of , a water supply is a problem which every city must face and a problem that becomes more complicated as the years go by. Ancient cities drew their water from wells and springs sometifnes within the city wallß. Water was brought from outside by conduits or aqueducts and stored in stone or concrete cisterns. Modern Rome still draws water from conduits which formed parts of the Candm aqueduct. Several aqueducts brought water to the city. There was the Appia aqueduct that drew water from a spring ten miles south of Rome. The Annio Vetus had its intake in a valley about 43 miles from the city. It was cleverly chosen for its elevation, which was maintained by using the contours of the country. There are remains of Roman aqueducts in various parts of the old Roman Empire. There are the Cherchel aqueduct, the Fuente del Diablo at Segovia, Spain, Hadrian's conduit at Athens and many in Asia Minor.

There are no ruined aqueducts in Britain. River and stream water was plentiful and the rainfall reliable. Then there were no great cities, such as those in Mediterranean countries.

But the British Isles have splendid and immense water works to-day. Huge volumes of water are needed for her cities and this must fce sought far afield to insure its freedom from contamination. The reservoir that supplies Liverpool is typical of others. A great dam a quarter of a mile long was built across the Vyrnwy Valley in Wales. The valley was flooded behind the dam and every day some of these millions of gallons of water pour through the 70-mile pipe line to Liverpool.

Mature ha» formed great reservoirs under the ground. Australia offers some of the beet examples. Water comes up from underground storage through bores, dome of them 3500 ft deep. There are four big artesian basins in Australia, the largest 'being the Great Australian Basin. It includes almost all Queensland west of the coastal strip and parte of New South Wales and South Australia. The water has been stored for thousands of years, but man's careless use has so wasted it that the flow is now reduced to half what it was in 1914