236 ADDITIONAL NOTES ON TREE-TRUNK WATER-PIPES.
We shall then realise why the diffusion of waterworks throughout
the country depended so largely upon the diffusion of fright,
resulting from the evident connection of shallow-wells with
cholera and other epidemics, and, consequently, why there is
such a lack of evidence of the use of tree-trunk water-pipes in
small towns after they had been found inadequate in the greater
centres of population. For, as we have seen, though iron pipes
began to be used by the London companies in the years 1809-10,
yet in the year 1835 the larger towns which had adopted water-
works seem to have been but a minority.
Mr. Whitaker, writing from Gosport, on August 19th, 1903,
remarked that he remembered seeing some tree-trunk pipes in or
near Tottenham Court Road about 50 years ago, and that
he believed some were found at Southampton a few years ago,
when he was living there, a specimen being preserved at the
Hartley Institute. He also stated that on August 18th (the day
before he wrote) he saw many in the High Street, Gosport. He
added that Mr. E. T. Mildred, the Waterworks Engineer at
Gosport, has seen them all along High Street, North Street,
South Street, and Forton Road, but has been unable to trace
their history, as they have nothing to do with any existing supply.5
Our President, Mr. F. W. Rudler, kindly informs me that a
few years ago many old wooden water-pipes were visible in
Piccadilly when the road was taken up. As a friend of his, Mr.
James Paton, Curator of the Glasgow Museum, wished to have
one, a pipe was procured and sent to the Glasgow Museum.
Mr. Rudler also tells me that when attending the Southport
meeting of the British Association this year he visited Liverpool
on Saturday, and saw in the Museum there two tree-trunk pipes.
They were labelled as old elm water-pipes used to supply Liver-
pool about the year 1800.
Mr. H. M. Klaassen, F.G.S., has been good enough to tell
me that in the last year in which the late Professor A. C.
Ramsay lectured on Geology, at the Museum of Practical
Geology, Jermyn Street (1876), the road in Piccadilly was under-
going extensive repairs. He then saw many wooden water-pipes,
5. I am also indebted to Mr. Whitaker for the information, received some weeks later,
that specimens of tree-trunk water-pipes are to be seen at the Parkes Museum of the
Sanitary Institute, 74A, Margaret Street, London, W. [And it may be worth noting that in
the recently published catalogue of the Guildhall Museum, page 160, there is the following
entry :—"110-111. Water-pipes (two) wood. Constructed of the hollowed trunk of a tree—
xvii, century—5 feet 3 inches in length, 91/2 inches diameter one end, S inches diameter other.
London."—Ed.]