WATER STATIONS.

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If the water available in the immediate neighborhood of a given point is found, on properexamination, to be too hard, chemically impure, or otherwise objectionable, it will, in allprobability, prove advantageous to locate the proposed water station elsewhere, or even toadopt a costly pipe-line to bring good water from a more distant source. If no better sourceof supply is available, however, the water is frequently treated chemically with differentmixtures, patented as a rule, reducing the tendency to foam and rendering the water lessdetrimental, or precipitating the incrusting matter before the water enters the boilers. Thechemical treatment of the water prior to its entrance into the boiler is considered moredesirable by the best authorities on the subject than to use so-called “boiler compounds” inthe boiler.

The available sources to obtain water from are usually one or more of the following,namely, drawing from springs, from brooks or streams, from natural ponds or lakes, fromartificial storage ponds or reservoirs, from dug wells or artesian wells, or from city water-works.Unless the source is unquestionably larger than the supply required, its volume should becarefully gauged or its watershed ascertained, and the minimum flow established with dueregard to a probable reduction during protracted droughts. The permanency, steadiness, andcapacity of a source, combined with its distance and relative elevation to the point on theroad where the water is to be used, in addition to the quality of the water, would influencethe choice as between several available sources.

Water is pumped from ponds, lakes, springs, wells, or streams below the level of the rail-road by a suction-pipe, the end of which has a basket or hood, and is usually protected by acribbing, grillage, or sheathing. In mountainous sections of the country, where a source isfrequently found higher than the railroad, the water is collected in a settling box, basin, orreservoir, and thence allowed to run by gravity through a pipe to the railroad.

In taking water from its source to the place where it is to be used, and delivering itthere at the proper height, the following methods are used, namely, transporting water alongthe railroad in specially constructed water-cars; or catching the water, where feasible, at suf-ficient height above the railroad to let it run by gravity through a pipe-line, or an open ditchand a pipe-line combined, to the railroad ; or elevating it to the proper height by pumpsworked by hand, steam, windmills, gas, hot-air, water or horse power. Relative to these sev-eral systems for conducting and elevating water it can be said that transporting by water-cars is used only for temporary service, or to help keep up the supply along the road duringprotracted droughts. The best method is, naturally, to draw the water by gravity from abasin or reservoir located in a gully or on some hill near the railroad. Pumps worked byhand or horse-power should only be resorted to as a temporary makeshift, or for a very smallsupply, or in connection with windmills to maintain the supply, when the water gets low,without any prospect of wind. Steam-pumps are either operated by a special boiler in con-nection with the pump, or steam is drawn in the vicinity of shops from the main shop boilers.Windmills give good service, where the storage capacity is comparatively large, the trafficsmall, and the prospects favorable for frequent winds. On the Pacific roads, artesian wells inconnection with windmills are very frequent. The practicability and economy of introducinggas or hot-air engines, water-wheels, turbines, or connections with a city water service aredependent on special circumstances and conditions in each particular case. For a large