Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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              to the shaft timbers. </s>
              <s>This machine draws the water higher, as much as
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              twenty-four feet. </s>
              <s>If the diameter of the pipes is large, only two pumps are
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              made; if smaller, three, so that by either method the volume of water is the
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              same. </s>
              <s>This also must be understood regarding the other machines and
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              their pipes. </s>
              <s>Since these pumps are composed of two lengths of pipe, the
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              little iron box having the iron valve which I described before, is not enclosed
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              in a trunk, but is in the lower length of pipe, at that point where it joins
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              the upper one; thus the rounded part of the piston-rod is only as long as
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              the upper length of pipe; but I will presently explain this more clearly.</s>
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              <s>The sixth kind of pump would be just the same as the fifth were it not
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              that it has an axle instead of a barrel, turned not by men but by a water­
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              wheel, which is revolved by the force of water striking its buckets.
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              <s>Since water-power far exceeds human strength, this machine draws water
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              through its pipes by discs out of a shaft more than one hundred feet deep.
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              <s>The bottom of the lowest pipe, set in the sump, not only of this pump but
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              also of the others, is generally enclosed in a basket made of wicker-work, to
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              prevent wood shavings and other things being sucked in. (See p. </s>
              <s>183.)</s>
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              <s>The seventh kind of pump, invented ten years ago, which is the most
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              ingenious, durable, and useful of all, can be made without much expense. </s>
              <s>It
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              is composed of several pumps, which do not, like those last described, go down
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              into the shaft together, but of which one is below the other, for if there are
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              three, as is generally the case, the lower one lifts the water of the sump and
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              pours it out into the first tank; the second pump lifts again from that tank
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              into a second tank, and the third pump lifts it into the drain of the tunnel.
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              <s>A wheel fifteen feet high raises the piston-rods of all these pumps at the same
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              time and causes them to drop together. </s>
              <s>The wheel is made to revolve by
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              paddles, turned by the force of a stream which has been diverted to the
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              mountain. </s>
              <s>The spokes of the water-wheel are mortised in an axle six feet
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              long and one foot thick, each end of which is surrounded by an iron band,
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              but in one end there is fixed an iron journal; to the other end is attached an
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              iron like this journal in its posterior part, which is a digit thick and as wide
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              as the end of the axle itself. </s>
              <s>Then the iron extends horizontally, being
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              rounded and about three digits in diameter, for the length of a foot, and
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              serves as a journal; thence, it bends to a height of a foot in a curve,
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              like the horn of the moon, after which it again extends straight out for
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              one foot; thus it comes about that this last straight portion, as it
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              revolves in an orbit becomes alternately a foot higher and a foot lower than
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              the first straight part. </s>
              <s>From this round iron crank there hangs the first flat
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              pump-rod, for the crank is fixed in a perforation in the upper end of this flat
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              pump-rod just as the iron key of the first set of “claws” is fixed into the
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              lower end. </s>
              <s>In order to prevent the pump-rod from slipping off it, as it
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              could easily do, and that it may be taken off when necessary, its opening
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              is wider than the corresponding part of the crank, and it is fastened on
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              both sides by iron keys. </s>
              <s>To prevent friction, the ends of the pump-rods are
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              protected by iron plates or intervening leathers. </s>
              <s>This first pump-rod is
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              about twelve feet long, the other two are twenty-six feet, and each is a palm </s>
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