They suffered formerly at Philadelphia in the same manner as ourselves, when at one time they had six lines of wooden pipes leading their water to the city, which they finally abandoned, and substituted iron pipes of large diameter. " There have been discontinued since the city came into possession of the water works of wooden pipes, seven thousand eight hundred and seventy-one feet. Of this amount, three thousand three hundred and eleven feet have been replaced with iron pipes, and four thousand five hundred and sixty feet have been discontinued on streets where the former company had laid down iron pipes, and still continued the use of the logs. The attachments were therefore changed to the iron pipes, and the logs abandoned, by which considerable leakage and many repairs have been avoided. "The consumption of water in the city has averaged for fhe last year, one million and eighty thousand gallons daily, which has been distributed to three thousand tenants, being an average daily supply to each tenant of three hundred and sixty gallons. This large average supply is attributable, partially, to the constant practice throughout the city of families, and other establishments, supplying themselves with water from the hydrants and pipes without authority, which has become a very serious drawback upon the revenue

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 81

of the works. But the large average supply (so greatly beyond the wants of the citizens) is owing to the innumerable leaks from the wooden pipes, which it is impossible principally to discover, as the water descends into the gravel and into the numerous sink holes, so common on the upper plane of the city. "As the iron pipes are substituted, this waste will diminish, and I have no doubt, when the wooden pipes are all abandoned, and some prompt measures enforced against such as take water without authority, that the present amount of fuel consumed by the engines, will supply double the number of tenants.