ANCIENT WATERWORKS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 62, 11 February 1936, Page 2

ANCIENT WATERWORKS

TRACED IN HISTORY

MAYOR’S ADDRESS. Remarks upon early water supplies to communities were made at the weekly gathering of the Palmerston North Rotary Club, yesterday, by the Mayor (Mr A. E. Mansford) in the course of an address. The first method of artificially obtaining a water supply was by digging wells, said the speaker, the wells being mere shallow cavities scooped, out of the ground in low places. It was interesting to note that the sinking of deep wells through rock dated from a very early period, the Chinese having been familiar with such work from remote times. Besides -wells, other works for water supply purposes were constructed by the ancients, such as reservoirs, cisterns, aqueducts, etc. “The greatest development of waterworks construction in ancient times took place during the prosperous period of the Roman Empire, some of the finest works having been built at this time,” the speaker said. “To supply the chief cities of the empire great aqueducts were constructed, many miles in length, and there were in some cases several such aqueducts supplying a single city. Rome was at one time supplied by 14 different aqueducts, some of which had a length of 40 miles. The first of these was built about 312 8.C., and the last about 305 A.D. Some of the other cities which were well supplied with water at this time were Paris and Lvons in France, Metz in Germany and Segovia and Seville in Spain. “The distribution of water in this age was by no means general. From the aqueducts the water first passed into large cisterns and from these it was distributed through lead pipes to the fountains, baths a.nd various public buildings, and to a few private consumers. The masses of the people were obliged to secure their supply from the public fountains. While the actual amount of the water used by private consumers was not large, the liberality of the supply for public purposes was so great that the total consumption in many cases was very high, some estimates making the consumption of water in Rome as high as 300 gallons per capita daily. “After the fall of Rome the entire subject of water supply was neglected for many centuries and, as one result, Europe was. ravaged many times by terrible pestilences, due to polluted water. In some cases even the purpose for which the ancient aqueducts had been built -was forgotten by the inhabitants. The development of modern waterworks began in Paris and London as early as tlie beginning of the 17tli century, but little progress was made until the application of steam to pumping engines, first made in London in liol. Since 1800 the development has been very rapid, both in Europe and Anierica. Nearly all towns of 2000 inhabitants or more have a public water supply and the construction of works is progressing quickly in smaller towns and villages. .While there is more work to be done in this direction, the chief work of the future will be in the providing of increased supplies for the rapidly growing cities and towns of this country, in developing new and better sources of supply, and in the improvement of the qualitv of the existing supplies. There is also much opportunity tor the engineer in the management ot waterworks, in the direction of reducing costs of operation, prevention of waste and in the improvement ot service in other ways.”