ВУЗ:
Составители:
Рубрика:
46
UNIT 8
TEXT A. FROM THE HISTORY OF WATER SUPPLY.
Water is power not only in the hydraulic sense, but in relation to progress
and culture; campaigns as well as fortresses have been lost, projects rendered
impracticable and communities have decayed for want of water.
Nature has provided prototypes for most of man’s devices and, just as the
streams and rivers anticipated water distribution systems, so tanks, cisterns and
reservoirs have their natural counterparts in water-holes and natural pools.
Long after man had found ways and means to organize water supplies,
find them where they were hidden and lead them to where he wanted them,
streams and pools in their natural state have served as communal water
supplies, even in more or less civilized Europe.
Many of the so-called “wells” of medieval Britain, for example, were
untouched pools or gushing springs. The same applies of course to a great many
“wells of the East” and in old writings the term “well” may not mean a dug well
at all but a surface pool adopted as a communal or regular water supply.
The history of conduits or public fountains as communal water supplies
starts at least as far back as the 13
th
century. In the “conduit age” – the centuries
immediately following the Middle Ages a water carrier was a common sight.
The 17
th
century marks the beginning of the new order in communal
organization and in relation to water supply, the beginning of large-scale
schemes.
All through London’s history until modem times, the question of water
supply continued to be a problem. In the 18
th
century even with the appearance
of larger water companies the water supply was far from being satisfactory. It
was a usual practice at the time to lay on water for two hours every second day.
At York, before the formation of the present water company in 1846 one
half of the city was supplied for 2 hours on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays
and the other half on Tuesdays, Thursday s and Saturday s, no supply being
given on Sundays.
Water drawn from the river Thames was in a state that was offensive to
the sight as the intake was found to be only three yards from the outlet of a
Страницы
- « первая
- ‹ предыдущая
- …
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- …
- следующая ›
- последняя »
