Our present elaborate system of water distribution was of humble origin. It was not a rapid growth, but a gradual evolution. Its four principal stages were: First, distribution from natural sources by water carriers; second, aqueducts conveying water to communities where a system of sub-conduits or aqueducts conveyed the water from the main aqueduct to reservoirs at different points in a city; third, a system of distributing mains through which water was furnished to householders at certain hours only during the day; and fourth, our present system of continuous supply at all hours of the day and night. In the first stages of water distribution, water was carried on the backs of water carriers in earthenware jars constructed especially for the purpose, or in goat or other animal skins properly tanned and sewed to hold water. While this method of water distribution is of great antiquity, it is still practiced in most tropical countries, and to this day water carriers, some with the burdens on their backs, others with goatskins of water on donkeys' backs or with jars of water in two-wheeled carts, may be seen plying their trade in Mexican and Egyptian cities.
The earliest record we have of any effort to supply a community with water conveyed in tunnels or aqueducts from a great distance, dates from the year 727 B. C. King Hezekiah or Ezekias, who reigned in Jerusalem at that time, was much troubled over the poor quality of water furnished to the city and undertook to provide a better supply.
Pool of Siloam
Pool of Solomon
He had built at the gates of the city a vast reservoir, the "Pool of Siloam," but when it was completed, found that a sufficient quantity of water could not be had without conveying it from a distant source on the easterly side of a range of hills of solid rock, over which it would be impossible to convey it. In no way daunted he set to work to pierce the hills with a tunnel or aqueduct, capable of supplying the city with water. Work was commenced simultaneously at both ends of the tunnel and progressed uninterruptedly until the workmen met in the center under the mountain or hill. An inscription in old Hebrew characters, found close to Jerusalem and preserved in the Constantinople Museum, throws some interesting light on this, for that period, remarkable engineering work. Translated, the inscription reads: "The piercing is terminated. When the pick of one had not yet struck against the pick of the other, and while there was yet a distance of 3 ells, it was possible to hear the voice of one man calling to another across the rock separating them, and the last day of the piercing, the miner's pick met against pick. The height of rock above the heads of the miners was 100 ells. Then the water flowed into the reservoir over a length of 1,200 ells." This tunnel was cut through a mountain of solid rock. The tunnel varied in dimensions from ⅝ of a yard to a yard in width, and from 1 to 3 yards in height, according to the hardness of the rock.