64 ON TREE-TRUNK WATER-PIPES.
John Street Road to the Bagnigge Wells Road were really fields devoted to
the pasturage of cows, and to a forest of elm trees; not standing and adorned
with foliage in the summer, but lying on the ground to the southward of the
new river Head, being destined to convey water in their hollow trunks to the
northern and western parts of London in combination with similar pipes laid
under the roadways of the streets."
I am also indebted to the kindness of Mr. C. F. Marsh, of
the East London Water Company, for the information that cast
iron pipes were first laid down by that company about the year
1808, though wooden pipes were probably used several years
after that date, when channels of the smaller sizes were required.
He adds that the use of bored wooden pipes has been recently
revived in parts of the United States where timber is cheap.
They are somewhat less rudely made than the older specimens,
and are surrounded by spiral bands of steel.
The subterranean position usually occupied by these water-
pipes has almost entirely prevented them being shown in
pictures and engravings of the periods during which they were
used. My son Walter, however, has reminded me that a
wooden water-pipe appears in Hogarth's picture "Evening"
(1738).
Nor are they common (so far as I know) in museums. There
is one in the Guildhall Museum, among the other local
antiquities there, described as an "Ancient Water-Pipe for
supplying the City Conduits." It is between five and six feet
long. And the late Frank Buckland mentions one in the
Museum at Oxford (Curiosities of Natural History 2nd Ser.
Chap. I.) in the following terms:—
" In the same Museum is suspended against the wall what at first sight
appears to be a wooden pipe, but upon examination it will be seen to be not a
wooden, but a stone one ; it is a stone pipe formed within a wooden one. The
original pipe, about four inches square, belonged to the old conduit at Carfax in
Oxford; in process of time the carbonate of lime had formed equally on all four
sides of the pipe to the thickness of about a quarter of an inch. When taken up
the woodwork was found to be quite decayed, but nevertheless it did not leak, as
there was another pipe within it, firmer, more solid, and more lasting than the
wooden one, through which the water flowed; this second pipe is of stone,
naturally formed within the first. On examining our stone specimen we find that
the inside is smooth, but the outside, on the contrary, is quite rough preserving
accurately the lines of the rough fibre of the oak from which the wooden pipe
was made, and in one place a mark, very like a saw mark, can be traced."
Doubtless a similar deposit has preserved the efficiency of