552

Ancient Leaden Pipes.

[Book V.

plumbers were as industrious as the shipwrights to decry the lead;” butfinding their Opposition in a great measure fruitless, “ some of them nowbegan to cry it up, and have set up engines to mill it themselves.”—(Collier’s Dict. Art. England.)

A paper in the Phil. Transactions, 1674, erroneously attributes the in-vention to Sir Philip Howard and Major Watson. These gentlemen wereassociated with Haie in the patent, and merely contributed their in-fluence to introduce the new manufaeture, especially to sheathe the pub-lic ships. (Abrid. i, 596.) The large ship built by Archimedes wassheathed with lead.

Pipes for the conveyance of water have been made of earthenware,stone, wood and leather, but more generally of lead and copper. Leadenpipes extend back to the dawn of history. They were more or less com-mon in all the celebrated nations of old. In the old cities of Asia , Egypt ,Greece , Syria , &c. they were employed to convey water wherever thepressure was too great to be sustained by those of earthenware. Thesame practice is still followed : thus in Aleppo , both leaden pipes, andthose of stoneware are used, and in all probability just as they were whenthis city was known to the Greeks as Bercea, and to the Jews in David’stime as Zobah. Archimedes used pipes of lead, to distribute waterby engines in the large ship built for Hiero ; and the same kind weredoubtless employed in conveying water to the different terraces of thefamous gardens of Babylon. The great elevation to which the fluid wasraised would render earthenware or wooden pipes entirely inapplicable.

We have no Information respecting the mode of making leaden pipesprevious to the Roman era ; but as that people adopted the arts and cus-toms of older nations, we may be assured that their tubes, as well as theirpumps and other engines, were mere copies of those made by the plumbersof Babylon and Athens, Egypt and Tyre. All ancient pipes yet dis-covered are said to have been made from sheet lead ; viz : strips of suffi-cient width folded into tubes and the edges United by solder. We learnfrom Vitruvius that Roman plumbers generally made them in ten feetlengths, the thickness of the metal being proportioned to their bore, accord-ing to a rule which he gives in book viii, cap. 7. of his Architecture.Large quantities of Roman leaden pipes have been found in different partsof Europe , varying in their bore from one to twelve inches. Some ofthem are very irregularly formed, their section being rather egg-shapedthan circular. Montfaucon has engraved several specimens. On large onesbelonging to the public, the name of the consul under whom they werelaid was cast upon them. Others that supplied the baths of wealthy indi-viduals have the owners’ names; and sometimes the maker’s name wascast on them. Of small leaden pipes, Frontinus mentions 13,594 of oneinch bore that drew water from one of the aqueducts. Pompeii was buta small provincial town, of which not more than one-third has been ex-plored, and yet a great many tons of pipes have been found. The con-sumption of lead for pipes must have been enormous in old Rome , notonly from their great number, but on account of the large dimensions ofthe principal ones. Pliny might well observe, “ Lead is much used withus for sheets to make conduit pipes.”—(xxxiv, cap. 17.)

An ordinance of Justinian respecting a bagnio erected at Constantinople by one of the dignitaries of the empire is extant: “ Our imperial will andpleasure is, that the leaden pipes conducting the water to the Achillean'bagnio, contrived by your wisdom, and purehased by your munificence,be under the same regulations and management as have been appointedin the like cases ; and that the said pipes shall only supply such bagnios