It were vain to even try, to trace the advances made toward the mammoth city pumping stations, from the early beginning hereafter described, which have inspired the words recorded by J. F. Holloway, M. E.:
“In looking upon the ponderous pumping engines which lift a volume of water equal to the flow of a river, sending it with each throbbing beat of their pulsating plungers through the arteries and veins that now reach out in every direction in our great cities, bringing health, comfort, cleanliness and protection to every home therein, we cannot but wonder what is the history of their beginning, what the process of their evolution out from the crude appliances of long ago.
Just who the first man was, and by what stream he sat gazing on his parched fields, on which the cloudless skies of the Orient shed no rain, and where the early rising sun with eager haste lapped up the dew drops which the more kindly night in pity over his hard lot had shed, and who, looking on his withering grain stalks on the one side and the life-giving waters which flowed by on the other, first caught the inspiring thought that if one could only be brought to the other, how great would be the harvest, we shall never know. Knowing, as we do, that such still is the problem that confronts the toiler on the plains of that far-off Eastern land where man’s necessities first prompted man’s invention, it does not require a great stretch of the imagination to conceive of such a situation, and to believe that, acting on the impulse of the moment, he called his mate, and tying thongs to the feet of a sheep-skin and standing on either side of the brook, with alternate swingings of the suspended skin they lifted the waters of the stream to the thirsty field, making its blanched furrows to bloom with vegetation, and at the same time introducing to the world the first hydraulic apparatus ever invented, and certainly the first hydraulic ram ever used.”
[The figures shown] on the opening page of this section of the work represent the very first utensils used for collecting and containing water. The gourd or calabash was undoubtedly the very first; it was common among the ancient Romans, Mexicans and Egyptians, and in the most modern times continues to be in use in Africa, South America and other warm countries. The New Zealanders possessed no other vessels for holding liquids, and the same remark is applicable to numerous other savage tribes.
Although not strictly connected with the subject, it may be observed that the gourd is probably the original vessel for heating water, cooking, etc. In these and other applications the neck is sometimes used as a handle and an opening made into the body by removing a portion of it, as shown in the engraving, its exterior being kept moistened by water while on the fire, while others apply a coating of clay to protect it from the effects of the flame. When in process of time vessels for heating water were formed wholly of clay, they were fashioned after the cauldron as shown.
Figs. 47-52.
The above illustrations are representations of ancient vases; it is curious to note their conformation to the figure of the gourd. The first three on the left are from Thebes. Golden ewers of a similar form were used by rich Egyptians for containing water to wash the hands and feet of their guests.