enabled the Company to fill the cisterns in the basement stories of the houses they supplied. Hence, in 1810, resort was had to steam engines to throw the water up, and then a head was thus obtained 144 feet above the level of the Thames, and high for enough the loftiest houses. Another consequence of employing the steam engine, was the replacing the wooden tubes through which the water was first conveyed, by iron pipes. At one time this company had 400 miles laid down of wooden tubes, of which about twenty miles, on an average, required to be renewed every year, thus causing the whole to be renewed every 20 years. This was a monstrous annual drain, besides the public inconvenience of constantly breaking up the great thoroughfares to replace these tubes. The smallness of the bores, moreover, of the tubes, seldom exceeding eight inches, required a great multiplication of trains to transmit the needful supply of water. In 1810, nine trains were laid side by side in one street.

In the course of the next ten years, all the wooden tubes were replaced by iron, at a cost of one and a half million dollars.

In addition to the supply from the New River, this company, in fulfilment of their contract with the London Bridge Water Works Company, have a steam engine of 100 horse power on the banks of the Thames, between Blackfriars and Southwark iron

bridge, which, through a main 33 inches in diameter, extending into the river, can pump up 5000 hogsheads per hour ; so as in any contingency to ensure a supply to those families