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This operation was completed in 1848, and three steam-pumps were then employed for five years in discharging the water. The whole enterprise was conducted at the expense of the state, and in 1853 the recovered lands were offered for sale for its benefit.
Perhaps the Canal Cavour, and other irrigating canals now proposed, may one day intercept as large a proportion of the supply of the lower Po as Egyptian dikes, canals, shadoofs, and steam-pumps do of that of the Nile. Another circumstance is important to be considered in comparing the character of these three rivers.
Later in the action another of their best ships, the Chih-Yuen, came to grief. She had evidently been for long in difficulties, labouring heavily, with the steam-pumps constantly in requisition, as we could tell by the streams of water poured from her sides. Bravely she fought on unsupported, and her upper deck and top guns were served until she sank.
So that if Madam How has been a rough and hasty workwoman in pumping her treasures up out of her mine with her great steam-pumps, she shows herself delicate and tender and kindly enough in giving them away afterwards. Nay, even the fine dust which is sometimes blown out of volcanos is useful to countries far away.
Our quartz mines are generally in dry hills, so that they are not troubled much by water; but there are a few shafts where steam-pumps are constantly at work to carry off the water.
To keep out the leakage, steam-pumps were kept going night and day. By dint of hard work the upper masonry of the wall had been laid to the top course, ready for the coping, and there was now every prospect that the last stone would be lowered into place before the winter storms set in.
On every hand are the tall, unsightly constructions of timber that form the derricks, looking not unlike enormous spiders, as they stand on the sides of the mountains or in the ravines, while the network of iron pipes, through which the oil is forced by steam-pumps from the wells to Jersey City, are fitting webs for such spiders.
It is certain that the ancient Egyptians knew nothing as to the source of their great water-supply, their knowledge being limited to the combined river which begins at Khartūm, and for 1,750 miles flows uninterruptedly, and, with the exception of the River Atbara, without further tributaries until it reaches the sea; and it is curious to think that for every one of these 1,750 miles the Nile is a slowly diminishing stream, water-wheels, steam-pumps, and huge arterial canals distributing its water in all directions over the land.
The extraction of coal in the deeper seams had been facilitated by the use of recently invented steam-pumps, and the woollen industry around Verviers was producing, in 1757, 70,000 pieces of material a year. Such progress largely compensated for the decadence of tapestry, which had been ruined by the rivalry of printed stuffs.
The cry rang out that the steam-pumps must be started if the ship was to be saved, but long months had passed since any fire had blazed under those boilers, and to get up steam was a work of hours. With tar-soaked oakum and with dripping whale blubber the engineer strove to get the fires roaring, the while the men on deck toiled with desperate energy at the hand-pumps.
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