" They form a striking peculiarity in Turkish scenery, and it was some time before the principle upon which they were constructed was apparent. The water leaves the brow of a hill, and descending in earthen pipes rises in leaden or earthen ones, up one side of this pillar, to its former level, which must be, of course, the summit of the pillar, or sooteray, as it called by the Turks.* The water is here discharged into a stone basin as large as the top of the sooteray, and is discharged by another pipe, which descends

along the opposite side of the pillar, enters the ground, advances to the next sooteray, which it ascends and descends in the same manner and in this way the level of the water ;

* This word is from the Turkish sooteraysoo, which means the levelling of the water, and expresses very well the object of the sooteray.

44 PRELIMINARY ESSAY.

may be preserved for many miles over large ravines or plains, where an aqueduct would be, from its expensiveness, manifestly out of the question. In the city of Constantinople, the old ruinous aqueduct of Valens, which no longer conducts water in the usual manner, is converted into a series of sooterays, and permits one to examine their structure in detail. The stone basin on the summit is covered with an iron plate, to prevent the birds from injuring the water. This is connected by a hinge, and, upon lifting it up, the basin is found to be divided into two parts by a stone partition. Several holes are made in this partition near its upper edge. The water from the ascending pipe is allowed by this means to settle its foreign impurities, and the surface water, which is of course the most pure, flows through these apertures into the adjoining compartment, from whence it