MUNICIPAL PUMPING PLANTS. In 1582 a Dutchman named Peter Maurice erected a large pumping plant at London Bridge for the water supply of London. A current wheel drove 16 force pumps, each 17 inches in diameter and 30 inches long. By this means 216 gallons of water per minute, or 311,000 gallons a day, were raised to a cistern at an elevation of 120 feet, from which buildings near by were supplied through lead pipes.
The earliest pumping plant in America, or at least the earliest one on record as supplying water for municipal purposes, was built at Beth lehem, Pa., some time between 1754 and 1761. It is described as a five-inch lignum vita: pump. and lifted water to a height of 70 feet, through bored hemlock logs. In 1761 three single-acting iron force pumps, of 4-inch bore and 18-inch stroke, driven by an undershot water-wheel, were substituted. Of other early American pumping plants, the Center Square and the Fair mouth works at Philadelphia. started in 1801 and 1815 respectively, are perhaps the most notable. It is stated that about 1760 a Newcomen at mospheric pumping engine was imported from England for use at copper mines near Belle ville, N. J. What appears to have been the first steam pumping engine to be built in the United States was erected by the city of Philadelphia in 1800 and put in operation on January 27,1801, at the Center Square Works. One of the pumps lifted water from the river level to a second pump about 50 feet higher, which in turn raised it another 50 feet. Both pumps were double acting force pumps and the engines had wooden lever beams and fly-wheels. The pumps had a
daily capacity of 3,000,000 gallons. The iron steam cylinder of at least one of these engines was cut in halves, united by copper, and secured externally by an iron band IS inches wide. This cylinder was 30 inches in diameter.
A screw wheel pump of immense size and ca pacity, but of very low lift, was put in operation at Milwaukee, Wis., in 1889. It is used to force water through a brick-lined tunnel, 12 feet in diameter and 2500 feet long, to flush the Mil waukee River, which is badly polluted with sewage. The screw wheel is 13 feet in diameter. At GO revolutions per minute it delivers 525, 000.000 gallons a day against a head or lift of 4 feet. On a run of a number of months it gave a duty of 09,000,000 foot-pounds per 100 pounds of coal.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Consult: Barr, Hydraidie MaBibliography. Consult: Barr, Hydraidie Ma- chinery (London and New Yo•k, 1897), technical, with chapters on pumps; Ewbank. A Descriptive and Historical Account of Hydraulic and Other Machines for Raising Water, Ancient and Modern (New York, 1870, new ed.), a curious and inter esting account of the development of pumps of all sorts up to the early part of the nineteenth cen tury; Hood, Nero Tests of certain Pumps and Water Lifts Used in Irrigation, Water Supply and irrigation Papers, United States Geological Survey, No. 14 (Washington, D. C., 1898) ; also chapters on pumps in genera] reference books cited under articles on IRRIGATION and WATER WORKS. See AIR COMPRESSORS; ARCHIMEDES' SCREWS ; DRAINAGE; HYDRAULIC RAM; and STEAM ENGINE.