[Picture: 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.