The number of inhabitants of Greenock is 25,000, receiving each two cubic feet, or about fourteen and one-tenth gallons daily.

Paris will next occupy our attention and considering the skill in all departments of engineering, which on all hands is acknowledged to belong to the French, it is remarkable that their capital, and, as it is often called, and really considered, the capital of Europe, is so much behind England in its contrivances for an adequate supply of water.

The early supply of this city, like others, having a fresh river running through it, was from that river, and from wells. Nevertheless, as the Romans had constructed an aqueduct at Arcueil, for the supply of Paris, it seemed reasonable to endeavor to restore what Norman fury, in the ninth century, had left of it accordingly, Henry IV.,

"Seul Roi dont le peuple ait garde la memoire,"

in 1609, caused researches to be made for the ancient conduits, but it was soon ascertained

would be easier to rebuild, than to attempt to repair, and, under the regency of that it

Marie de Medicis, in 1613, the work was undertaken, and completed in 1624, occupying nearly 12 years. The architect was Jacques de Brasses, the same who furnished the design for the Louvre. The quantity of water, however, thus obtained, was so small as scarcely to compensate for the expense of the work. At subsequent periods, additional

64 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. this aqueduct, and the united streams led to the reservoir at supplies were connected with the Observatory in Paris, whence they were distributed to the fountains.