84. The Fire-plug.
The turn-cock, as he is called, has just opened a fire-plug, or rather water-plug; but as its principal use is to supply water to the engines for extinguishing fires, it has acquired the former name, more from custom than propriety. Some boys make rare sport, by putting one foot on the stream, and dividing the course of the water; it is thus driven into the air, and over their companions or passengers.
At first sight it seems impossible for water to run up hill; and yet, by a little ingenuity, this is easily done; for, put water into what you please, and one side or end of it will always rise as high as the other. It is by knowing and thinking about this, that clever men have contrived to supply whole cities with water, and even to send it up into the highest rooms of a house. They first of all make a great reservoir, or collection of water, on some neighbouring hill, from which pipes are carried, underground, to all the houses they wish to supply; the water in that end of the pipes next the town, always rising as high as that in the reservoir at the other end of them. If they cannot find a convenient spring, sufficiently high, they force the water to a proper height by pumps and steam-engines; and by these inventions, do with ease, what the best ancient philosophers might have thought impossible. When one of the great pipes, which run through the streets of London, happens to burst, the water soon forces up the pavement, and a fountain is produced.