Introduction
1. Among the Seven Sages, Thales of Miletus pronounced for water as the
primordial element in all things; Heraclitus, for fire; the priests of the Magi,
for water and fire; Euripides, a pupil of Anaxagoras, and called by the
Athenians "the philosopher of the stage," for air and earth. Earth, he held, was
impregnated by the rains of heaven and, thus conceiving, brought forth the young
of mankind and of all the living creatures in the world; whatever is sprung from
her goes back to her again when the compelling force of time brings about a
dissolution; and whatever is born of the air returns in the same way to the
regions of the sky; nothing suffers annihilation, but at dissolution there is a
change, and things fall back to the essential element in which they were before.
But Pythagoras, Empedocles, Epicharmus, and other physicists and philosophers
have set forth that the primordial elements are four in number: air, fire,
earth, and water; and that it is from their coherence to one another under the
moulding power of nature that the qualities of things are produced according to
different classes.
2. And, in fact, we see not only that all which comes to birth is produced by
them, but also that nothing can be nourished without their influence, nor grow,
nor be preserved. The body, for example, can have no life without the flow of
the breath to and fro, that is, unless an abundance of air flows in, causing
dilations and contractions in regular succession. Without the right proportion
of heat, the body will lack vitality, will not be well set up, and will not
properly digest strong food. Again, without the fruits of the earth to nourish
the bodily frame, it will be enfeebled, and so lose its admixture of the earthy
element.
3. Finally, without the influence of moisture, living creatures will be
bloodless and, having the liquid element sucked out of them, will wither away. Accordingly
the divine intelligence has not made what is really indispensable for man either
hard to get or costly, like pearls, gold, silver, and so forth, the lack of
which neither our body nor our nature feels, but has spread abroad, ready to
hand through all the world, the things without which the life of mortals cannot
be maintained. Thus, to take examples, suppose there is a deficiency of breath
in the body, the air, to which is assigned the function of making up the
deficiency, performs that service. To supply heat, the mighty sun is ready, and
the invention of fire makes life more secure. Then again, the fruits of the
earth, satisfying our desires with a more than sufficient store of food stuffs,
support and maintain living beings with regular nourishment. Finally, water, not
merely supplying drink but filling an infinite number of practical needs, does
us services which make us grateful because it is gratis.
4. Hence, too, those who are clothed in priesthoods of the Egyptian orders
declare that all things depend upon the power of the liquid element. So, when
the waterpot is brought back to precinct and temple with water, in accordance
with the holy rite, they throw themselves upon the ground and, raising their
hands to heaven, thank the divine benevolence for its invention.
Therefore, since it is held by physicists and philosophers and priests that
all things depend upon the power of water, I have thought that, as in the former
seven books the rules for buildings have been set forth, in this I ought to
write on the methods of finding water, on those special merits which are due to
the qualities of localities, on the ways of conducting it, and how it may be
tested in advance. For it is the chief requisite for life, for happiness, and
for everyday use
Chapter One
How to Find Water
1. This will be easier if there are open springs of running water. But if
there are no springs which gush forth, we must search for them underground, and
conduct them together. The following test should be applied. Before sunrise, lie
down flat in the place where the search is to be made, and placing the chin on
the earth and supporting it there, take a look out over the country. In this way
the sight will not range higher than it ought, the chin being immovable, but
will range over a definitely limited height on the same level through the
country. Then, dig in places where vapours are seen curling and rising up into
the air. This sign cannot show itself in a dry spot.
2. Searchers for water must also study the nature of different localities;
for those in which it is found are well defined. In clay the supply is poor,
meagre, and at no great depth. It will not have the best taste. In fine gravel
the supply is also poor, but it will be found at a greater depth. It will be
muddy and not sweet. In black earth some slight drippings and drops are found
that gather from the storms of winter and settle down in compact, hard places.
They have the best taste. Among pebbles the veins found are moderate, and not to
be depended upon. These, too, are extremely sweet. In coarse grained gravel and
carbuncular sand the supply is surer and more lasting, and it has a good taste.
In red tufa it is copious and good, if it does not run down through the fissures
and escape. At the foot of mountains and in lava it is more plentiful and
abundant, and here it is also colder and more wholesome. In flat countries the
springs are salt, heavy-bodied, tepid, and ill-flavoured, excepting those which
run underground from mountains, and burst forth in the middle of a plain, where,
if protected by the shade of trees, their taste is equal to that of mountain
springs.
3. In the kinds of soil described above, signs will be found growing, such as
slender rushes, wild willows, alders, agnus castus trees, reeds, ivy, and other
plants of the same sort that cannot spring up of themselves without moisture.
But they are also accustomed to grow in depressions which, being lower than the
rest of the country, receive water from the rains and the surrounding fields
during the winter, and keep it for a comparatively long time on account of their
holding power. These must not be trusted, but the search must be made in
districts and soils, yet not in depressions, where those signs are found growing
not from seed, but springing up naturally of themselves.
4. If the indications mentioned appear in such places, the following test
should be applied. Dig out a place not less than three feet square and five feet
deep, and put into it about sunset a bronze or leaden bowl or basin, whichever
is at hand. Smear the inside with oil, lay it upside down, and cover the top of
the excavation with reeds or green boughs, throwing earth upon them. Next day
uncover it, and if there are drops and drippings in the vessel, the place will
contain water.
5. Again, if a vessel made of unbaked clay be put in the hole, and covered in
the same way, it will be wet when uncovered, and already beginning to go to
pieces from dampness, if the place contains water. If a fleece of wool is placed
in the excavation, and water can be wrung out of it on the following day, it
will show that the place has a supply. Further, if a lamp be trimmed, filled
with oil, lighted, and put in that place and covered up, and if on the next day
it is not burnt out, but still contains some remains of oil and wick, and is
itself found to be damp, it will indicate that the place contains water; for all
heat attracts moisture. Again, if a fire is made in that place, and if the
ground, when thoroughly warmed and burned, sends up a misty vapour from its
surface, the place will contain water.
6. After applying these tests and finding the signs described above, a well
must next be sunk in the place, and if a spring of water is found, more wells
must be dug thereabouts, and all conducted by means of subterranean
channels into one place.
The mountains and districts with a northern exposure are the best spots in
which to search, for the reason that springs are sweeter, more wholesome, and
more abundant when found there. Such places face away from the sun's course, and
the trees are thick in them, and the mountains, being themselves full of woods,
cast shadows of their own, preventing the rays of the sun from striking
uninterruptedly upon the ground and drying up the moisture.
7. The valleys among the mountains receive the rains most abundantly, and on
account of the thick woods the snow is kept in them longer by the shade of the
trees and mountains. Afterwards, on melting, it filters through the fissures in
the ground, and thus reaches the very foot of the mountains, from which gushing
springs come belching out.
But in flat countries, on the contrary, a good supply cannot be had. For
however great it is, it cannot be wholesome, because, as there is no shade in
the way, the intense force of the sun draws up and carries off the moisture from
the flat plains with its heat, and if any water shows itself there, the lightest
and purest and the delicately wholesome part of it is summoned away by the air,
and dispersed to the skies, while the heaviest and the hard and unpleasant parts
are left in springs that are in flat places.
Chapter Two
Rainwater
1. Rainwater has, therefore, more wholesome qualities, because it is drawn
from the lightest and most delicately pure parts of all the springs, and then,
after being filtered through the agitated air, it is liquefied by storms and so
returns to the earth. And rainfall is not abundant in the plains, but rather on
the mountains or close to mountains, for the reason that the vapour which
is set in motion at
sunrise in the morning, leaves the earth, and drives the air before it through
the heaven in whatever direction it inclines; then, when once in motion, it has
currents of air rushing after it, on account of the void which it leaves
behind.
2. This air, driving the vapour everywhere as it rushes along, produces gales
and constantly increasing currents by its mighty blasts. Wherever the winds
carry the vapour which rolls in masses from springs, rivers, marshes, and the
sea, it is brought together by the heat of the sun, drawn off, and carried
upward in the form of clouds; then these clouds are supported by the current of
air until they come to mountains, where they are broken up from the shock of the
collision and the gales, turn into water on account of their own fulness and
weight, and in that form are dispersed upon the earth.
3. That vapour, mists, and humidity come forth from the earth, seems due to
the reason that it contains burning heat, mighty currents of air, intense cold,
and a great quantity of water. So, as soon as the earth, which has cooled off
during the night, is struck by the rays of the rising sun, and the winds begin
to blow while it is yet dark, mists begin to rise upward from damp places. That
the air when thoroughly heated by the sun can make vapours rise rolling up from
the earth, may be seen by means of an example drawn from baths.
4. Of course there can be no springs above the vaultings of hot bathrooms,
but the atmosphere in such rooms, becoming well warmed by the hot air from the
furnaces, seizes upon the water on the floors, and takes it up to the curved
vaultings and holds it up there, for the reason that hot vapour always pushes
upwards. At first it does not let the moisture go, for the quantity is small;
but as soon as it has collected a considerable amount, it cannot hold it up, on
account of the weight, but sprinkles it upon the heads of the bathers. In the
same way, when the atmospheric air feels the heat of the sun, it draws the
moisture from all about, causes it to rise, and gathers it into clouds. For the
earth gives out
moisture under the influence of heat just as a man's heated body emits
sweat.
5. The winds are witnesses to this fact. Those that are produced and come
from the coolest directions, the north and northeast winds, blow in blasts that
are rarefied by the great dryness in the atmosphere, but the south wind and the
others that assail us from the direction of the sun's course are very damp, and
always bring rain, because they reach us from warm regions after being well
heated there, and licking up and carrying off the moisture from the whole
country, they pour it out on the regions in the north.
6. That this is the state of the case may be proved by the sources of rivers,
the majority and the longest of which, as drawn and described in geographies of
the world, are found to rise in the north. First in India, the Ganges and Indus
spring from the Caucasus; in Syria, the Tigris and Euphrates; in Pontus in Asia,
the Dnieper, Bug, and Don; in Colchis, the Phasis; in Gaul, the Rhone; in
Celtica, the Rhine; on this side of the Alps, the Timavo and Po; in Italy, the
Tiber; in Maurusia, which we call Mauretania, the Dyris, rising in the Atlas
range and running westerly to Lake Heptagonus, where it changes its name and is
called Agger; then from Lake Heptabolus it runs at the base of barren mountains,
flowing southerly and emptying into the marsh called<...
It surrounds Meroë, which is a kingdom in southern Ethiopia, and from the marsh
grounds there, winding round by the rivers Astansoba and Astoboa and a great
many others, it passes through the mountains to the Cataract, and from there it
dashes down, and passes to the north between Elephantis and Syene and the plains
of Thebes into Egypt, where it is called the Nile.
7. That the source of the Nile is in Mauretania is known principally from the
fact that there are other springs on the other side of the Atlas range flowing
into the ocean to the west, and that ichneumons, crocodiles, and other animals
and fishes of
like nature are found there, although there are no hippopotamuses.
8. Therefore, since in descriptions of the world it appears that all rivers
of any size flow from the north, and since in the plains of Africa, which are
exposed to the course of the sun in the south, the moisture is deeply hidden,
springs not common, and rivers rare, it follows that the sources of springs
which lie to the north or northeast are much better, unless they hit upon a
place which is full of sulphur, alum, or asphalt. In this case they are
completely changed, and flow in springs which have a bad smell and taste,
whether the water is hot or cold.
9. The fact is, heat is not at all a property of water, but when a stream of
cold water happens upon a hot place, it boils up, and issues through the
fissures and out of the ground in a state of heat. This cannot last very long,
but in a short time the water becomes cold. If it were naturally hot, it would
not cool off and lose its heat. Its taste, however, and its smell and colour are
not restored, because it has become saturated and compounded with these
qualities on account of the rarity of its nature.
Chapter Three
Various Properties of Different Waters
1. There are, however, some hot springs that supply water of the best taste,
which is so delightful to drink that one does not think with regret of the
Fountain of the Muses or the Marcian aqueduct. These hot springs are produced
naturally, in the following manner. When fire is kindled down beneath in alum or
asphalt or sulphur, it makes the earth immediately over it very hot, and emits a
glowing heat to the parts still farther above it, so that if there are any
springs of sweet water found in the upper strata, they begin to boil in their
fissures when they are met by this heat, and so they run out with their taste
unimpaired.
2. And there are some cold springs that have a bad smell and taste. They rise
deep down in the lower strata, cross places which are on fire, and then are
cooled by running a long distance through the earth, coming out above ground
with their taste, smell, and colour spoiled; as, for instance, the river Albula
on the road to Tivoli and the cold springs of Ardea, which have the same smell
and are called sulphur springs, and others in similar places. Although they are
cold, yet at first sight they seem to be hot for the reason that when they
happen upon a burning spot deep down below, the liquid and the fire meet, and
with a great noise at the collision they take in strong currents of air, and
thus, swollen by a quantity of compressed wind, they come out at the springs in
a constant state of ebullition. When such springs are not open but confined by
rocks, the force of the air in them drives them up through the narrow fissures
to the summits of hills.
3. Consequently those who think that they have excavated sources of springs
at the height of such hills find themselves mistaken when they open up their
excavations. Suppose a bronze vase filled not to the very lips, but containing
two thirds of the quantity of water which forms its capacity, and with a cover
placed upon it. When it is subjected to a very hot fire, the water must become
thoroughly heated, and from the rarity of its nature it greatly expands by
taking in the heat, so that it not only fills the vase but raises its cover by
means of the currents of air in it, and swells and runs over. But if you take
the cover off, the expanding forces are released into the open air, and the
water settles down again to its proper level. So it is with the sources of
springs. As long as they are confined in narrow channels, the currents of air in
the water rush up in bubbles to the top, but as soon as they are given a wider
outlet, they lose their air on account of the rarity peculiar to water, and so
settle down and resume their proper level.
4. Every hot spring has healing properties because it has been boiled with
foreign substances, and thus acquires a new useful quality. For example, sulphur
springs cure pains in the sinews,
by warming up and burning out the corrupt humours
of the body by their heat. Aluminous springs, used in the treatment of the limbs
when enfeebled by paralysis or the stroke of any such malady, introduce warmth
through the open pores, counter-acting the chill by the opposite effect of their
heat, and thus equably restoring the limbs to their former condition. Asphaltic
springs, taken as purges, cure internal maladies.
5. There is also a kind of cold water containing natron, found for instance
at Penne in the Vestine country, at Cutiliae, and at other similar places. It is
taken as a purge and in passing through the bowels reduces scrofulous tumours.
Copious springs are found where there are mines of gold, silver, iron, copper,
lead, and the like, but they are very harmful. For they contain, like hot
springs, sulphur, alum, asphalt,... and when it passes into the body in the form
of drink, and spreading through the veins reaches the sinews and joints, it
expands and hardens them. Hence the sinews, swelling with this expansion, are
contracted in length and so give men the cramp or the gout, for the reason that
their veins are saturated with very hard, dense, and cold substances.
6. There is also a sort of water which, since it contains... that are not
perfectly clear, and it floats like a flower on the surface, in colour like
purple glass. This may be seen particularly in Athens, where there are aqueducts
from places and springs of that sort leading to the city and the port of
Piraeus, from which nobody drinks, for the reason mentioned, but they use them
for bathing and so forth, and drink from wells, thus avoiding their
unwholesomeness. At Troezen it cannot be avoided, because no other kind of water
at all is found, except what the Cibdeli furnish, and so in that city all or
most of the people have diseases of the feet. At the city of Tarsus in Cilicia
is a river named Cydnus, in which gouty people soak their legs and find relief
from pain.
7. There are also many other kinds of water which have peculiar properties;
for example, the river Himera in Sicily, which,
after leaving its source, is divided
into two branches. One flows in the direction of Etruria and has an exceedingly
sweet taste on account of a sweet juice in the soil through which it runs; the
other runs through a country where there are salt pits, and so it has a salt
taste. At Paraetonium, and on the road to Ammon, and at Casius in Egypt there
are marshy lakes which are so salt that they have a crust of salt on the
surface. In many other places there are springs and rivers and lakes which are
necessarily rendered salt because they run through salt pits.
8. Others flow through such greasy veins of soil that they are overspread
with oil when they burst out as springs: for example, at Soli, a town in
Cilicia, the river named Liparis, in which swimmers or bathers get anointed
merely by the water. Likewise there is a lake in Ethiopia which anoints people
who swim in it, and one in India which emits a great quantity of oil when the
sky is clear. At Carthage is a spring that has oil swimming on its surface and
smelling like sawdust from citrus wood, with which oil sheep are anointed. In
Zacynthus and about Dyrrachium and Apollonia are springs which discharge a great
quantity of pitch with their water. In Babylon, a lake of very great extent,
called Lake Asphaltitis, has liquid asphalt swimming on its surface, with which
asphalt and with burnt brick Semiramis built the wall surrounding Babylon. At
Jaffa in Syria and among the Nomads in Arabia, are lakes of enormous size that
yield very large masses of asphalt, which are carried off by the inhabitants
thereabouts.
9. There is nothing marvellous in this, for quarries of hard asphalt are
numerous there. So, when a quantity of water bursts its way through the
asphaltic soil, it carries asphalt out with it, and after passing out of the
ground, the water is separated and so rejects the asphalt from itself. Again, in
Cappadocia on the road from Mazaca to Tyana, there is an extensive lake into
which if a part of a reed or of some other thing be plunged, and withdrawn the
next day, it will be found that the part thus withdrawn has turned into stone,
while the part which remained above water retains its original nature.
10. In the same way, at Hierapolis in Phrygia there is a multitude of boiling
hot springs from which water is let into ditches surrounding gardens and
vineyards, and this water becomes an incrustation of stone at the end of a year.
Hence, every year they construct banks of earth to the right and left, let in
the water, and thus out of these incrustations make walls for their fields. This
seems due to natural causes, since there is a juice having a coagulating potency
like rennet underground in those spots and in that country. When this potency
appears above ground mingled with spring water, the mixture cannot but be
hardened by the heat of the sun and air, as appears in salt pits.
11. There are also springs which issue exceedingly bitter, owing to a bitter
juice in the soil, such as the river Hypanis in Pontus. For about forty miles
from its source its taste is very sweet; then it reaches a point about one
hundred and sixty miles from its mouth, where it is joined by a very small
brook. This runs into it, and at once makes that vast river bitter, for the
reason that the water of the brook becomes bitter by flowing through the kind of
soil and the veins in which there are sandarach mines.
12. These waters are given their different flavours by the properties of the
soil, as is also seen in the case of fruits. If the roots of trees, vines, or
other plants did not produce their fruits by drawing juices from soil of
different properties, the flowers of all would be of the same kind in all places
and districts. But we find in the island of Lesbos the protropum wine, in
Maeonia, the catacecaumenites, in Lydia, the Tmolian, in Sicily, the Mamertine,
in Campania, the Falernian, between Terracina and Fondi, the Caecuban, and wines
of countless varieties and qualities produced in many other places. This could
not be the case, were it not that the juice of the soil, introduced with its
proper flavours into the roots, feeds the stem, and, mounting along it to the
top, imparts a flavour to the fruit which is peculiar to its situation and
kind.
13. If soils were not different and unlike in their kinds of juices, Syria
and Arabia would not be the only places in which the reeds, rushes, and all the
plants are aromatic, and in which there are trees bearing frankincense or
yielding pepper berries and lumps of myrrh, nor would assafoetida be found only
in the stalks growing in Cyrene, but everything would be of the same sort, and
produced in the soil of all countries. It is the inclination of the firmament
and the force of the sun, as it draws nearer or recedes in its course, that make
these diversities such as we find them in different countries and places,
through the nature of the soil and it's juices. And not only in the case of the
things mentioned, but also in that of sheep and cattle. These diversities would
not exist if the different properties of soils and their juices were not
qualified by the power of the sun.
14. For instance, there are in Boeotia the rivers Cephisus and Melas, in
Lucania, the Crathis, in Troy, the Xanthus, and certain springs in the country
of the Clazomenians, the Erythraeans, and the Laodiceans. When sheep are ready
for breeding at the proper season of the year, they are driven every day during
that season to those rivers to drink, and the result is that, however white they
may be, they beget in some places whity-brown lambs, in other places gray, and
in others black as a raven. Thus, the peculiar character of the liquid, entering
their body, produces in each case the quality with which it is imbued. Hence, it
is said that the people of Ilium gave the river Xanthus its name because reddish
cattle and whity-brown sheep are found in the plains of Troy near that
river.
15. Deadly kinds of water are also found, which run through soil containing a
noxious juice, and take in its poisonous quality: for instance, there is said to
have been a spring at Terracina, called the spring of Neptune, which caused the
death of those who thoughtlessly drank from it. In consequence, it is said that
the ancients stopped it up. At Chrobs in Thrace there is a lake which causes the
death not only of those who drink of it, but also of those who bathe in it. In
Thessaly there is a gushing
fount of which sheep never taste, nor does any
sort of creature draw near to it, and close by this fount there is a tree with
crimson flowers.
16. In Macedonia, at the place where Euripides is buried, two streams
approach from the right and left of his tomb, and unite. By one of these,
travellers are in the habit of lying down and taking luncheon, because its water
is good; but nobody goes near the stream on the other side of the tomb, because
its water is said to be death-dealing. In Arcadia there is a tract of land
called Nonacris, which has extremely cold water trickling from a rock in the
mountains. This water is called "Water of the Styx," and no vessel, whether of
silver, bronze, or iron, can stand it without flying to pieces and breaking up.
Nothing but a mule's hoof can keep it together and hold it, and tradition says
that it was thus conveyed by Antipater through his son Iollas into the province
where Alexander was staying, and that the king was killed by him with this
water.
17. Among the Alps in the kingdom of Cottius there is a water those who taste
of which immediately fall lifeless. In the Faliscan country on the Via Campana
in the Campus Cornetus is a grove in which rises a spring, and there the bones
of birds and of lizards and other reptiles are seen lying.
Some springs are acid, as at Lyncestus and in Italy in the Velian country, at
Teano in Campania, and in many other places. These when used as drinks have the
power of breaking up stones in the bladder, which form in the human body.
18. This seems to be due to natural causes, as there is a sharp and acid
juice contained in the soil there, which imparts a sharpness to these springs as
they issue from it; and so, on entering the body, they disperse all the deposits
and concretions, due to the use of other waters, which they find in the body.
Why such things are broken up by acid waters we can see from the following
experiments. If an egg is left for some time in vinegar, its shell will soften
and dissolve. Again, if a piece of lead, which is very flexible and heavy, is
put in a vase and vinegar poured over it, and the vase covered and sealed up, the lead will be
dissolved and turn into white lead.
19. On the same principle, copper, which is naturally more solid, will
disperse and turn into verdigris if similarly treated. So, also, a pearl. Even
rocks of lava, which neither iron nor fire alone can dissolve, split into pieces
and dissolve when heated with fire and then sprinkled with vinegar. Hence, since
we see these things taking place before our very eyes, we can infer that on the
same principle even patients with the stone may, in the nature of things, be
cured in like manner by means of acid waters, on account of the sharpness of the
potion.
20. Then there are springs in which wine seems to be mingled, like the one in
Paphlagonia, the water of which intoxicates those who drink of the spring alone
without wine. The Aequians in Italy and the tribe of the Medulli in the Alps
have a kind of water which causes swellings in the throats of those who drink
it.
21. In Arcadia is the well-known town of Clitor, in whose territory is a cave
with running water which makes people who drink of it abstemious. At this
spring, there is an epigram in Greek verses inscribed on stone to the effect
that the water is unsuitable for bathing, and also injurious to vines, because
it was at this spring that Melampus cleansed the daughters of Proetus of their
madness by sacrificial rites, and restored those maidens to their former sound
state of mind. The inscription runs as written below:
Swain, if by noontide thirst thou art opprest
When with thy flocks to Cleitor's bounds thou'st hied,
Take from this fount a draught, and grant a rest
To all thy goats the water nymphs beside.
But bathe not in't when full of drunken cheer,
Lest the mere vapour may bring thee to bane;
Shun my vine-hating spring—Melampus here
From madness once washed Proetus' daughters sane,
And all th' offscouring here did hide, when they
From Argos came to rugged Arcady.
22. In the island of Zea is a spring of which those who thoughtlessly drink
lose their understanding, and an epigram is cut there to the effect that a draught from the
spring is delightful, but that he who drinks will become dull as a stone. These
are the verses:
This stone sweet streams of cooling drink doth drip,
But stone his wits become who doth it sip.
23. At Susa, the capital of the Persian kingdom, there is a little spring,
those who drink of which lose their teeth. An epigram is written there, the
significance of which is to this effect, that the water is excellent for
bathing, but that taken as drink, it knocks out the teeth by the roots. The
verses of this epigram are, in Greek, as follows:
Stranger, you see the waters of a spring
In which 'tis safe for men their hands to lave;
But if the weedy basin entering
You drink of its unpalatable wave,
Your grinders tumble out that self-same day
From jaws that orphaned sockets will display.
24. There are also in some places springs which have the peculiarity of
giving fine singing voices to the natives, as at Tarsus in Magnesia and in other
countries of that kind. Then there is Zama, an African city, which King Juba
fortified by enclosing it with a double wall, and he established his royal
residence there. Twenty miles from it is the walled town of Ismuc, the lands
belonging to which are marked off by a marvellous kind of boundary. For although
Africa was the mother and nurse of wild animals, particularly serpents, yet not
one is ever born in the lands of that town, and if ever one is imported and put
there, it dies at once; and not only this, but if soil is taken from this spot
to another place, the same is true there. It is said that this kind of soil is
also found in the Balearic Islands. The above mentioned soil has a still more
wonderful property, of which I have learned in the following way.
25. Caius Julius, Masinissa's son, who owned all the lands about that town,
served with Caesar the father. He was once my guest. Hence, in our daily
intercourse, we naturally talked of
literary subjects. During a conversation between
us on the efficacy of water and its qualities, he stated that there were springs
in that country of a kind which caused people born there to have fine singing
voices, and that consequently they always sent abroad and bought handsome lads
and ripe girls, and mated them, so that their progeny might have not only fine
voices but also beautiful forms.
26. This great variety in different things is a distribution due to nature,
for even the human body, which consists in part of the earthy, contains many
kinds of juices, such as blood, milk, sweat, urine, and tears. If all this
variation of flavours is found in a small portion of the earthy, we should not
be surprised to find in the great earth itself countless varieties of juices,
through the veins of which the water runs, and becomes saturated with them
before reaching the outlets of springs. In this way, different varieties of
springs of peculiar kinds are produced, on account of diversity of situation,
characteristics of country, and dissimilar properties of soils.
27. Some of these things I have seen for myself, others I have found written
in Greek books, the authorities for these writings being Theophrastus, Timaeus,
Posidonius, Hegesias, Herodotus, Aristides, and Metrodorus. These men with much
attention and endless pains showed by their writings that the peculiarities of
sites, the properties of waters, and the characteristics of countries are
conditioned by the inclination of the heaven. Following their investigations, I
have set down in this book what I thought sufficient about different kinds of
water, to make it easier, by means of these directions, for people to pick out
springs from which they can conduct the water in aqueducts for the use of cities
and towns.
28. For it is obvious that nothing in the world is so necessary for use as
water, seeing that any living creature can, if deprived of grain or fruit or
meat or fish, or any one of them, support life by using other foodstuffs; but
without water no animal nor any proper food can be produced, kept in good
condition, or prepared.
Consequently we must take great care and pains in
searching for springs and selecting them, keeping in view the health of
mankind.
Chapter Six
Aqueducts, Wells, and Cisterns
1. There are three methods of conducting water, in channels through masonry
conduits, or in lead pipes, or in pipes of baked clay. If in conduits, let the
masonry be as solid as possible, and let the bed of the channel have a gradient
of not less than a quarter of an inch for every hundred feet, and let the
masonry structure be arched over, so that the sun may not strike the water at
all. When it has reached the city, build a reservoir with a distribution tank in
three compartments connected with the reservoir to receive the water, and let
the reservoir have three pipes, one for each of the connecting tanks, so that
when the water runs over from the tanks at the ends, it may run into the one
between them.
2. From this central tank, pipes will be laid to all the basins and
fountains; from the second tank, to baths, so that they may yield an annual
income to the state; and from the third, to private houses, so that water for
public use will not run short; for people will be unable to divert it if they
have only their own supplies from headquarters. This is the reason why I have
made these divisions, and also in order that individuals who take water into
their houses may by their taxes help to maintain the conducting of the water by
the contractors.
3. If, however, there are hills between the city and the source of supply,
subterranean channels must be dug, and brought to a level at the gradient
mentioned above. If the bed is of tufa or other stone, let the channel be cut in
it; but if it is of earth or sand, there must be vaulted masonry walls for the
channel, and the water should thus be conducted, with shafts built at every two
hundred and forty feet.
4. But if the water is to be conducted in lead pipes, first build a reservoir
at the source; then, let the pipes have an interior area corresponding to the
amount of water, and lay these pipes from
this reservoir to the reservoir which is inside
the city walls. The pipes should be cast in lengths of at least ten feet. If
they are hundreds, they should weigh 1200 pounds each length; if eighties, 960
pounds; if fifties, 600 pounds; forties, 480 pounds; thirties, 360 pounds;
twenties, 240 pounds; fifteens, 180 pounds; tens, 120 pounds; eights, 100
pounds; fives, 60 pounds. The pipes get the names of their sizes from the width
of the plates, taken in digits, before they are rolled into tubes. Thus, when a
pipe is made from a plate fifty digits in width, it will be called a "fifty,"
and so on with the rest.
5. The conducting of the water through lead pipes is to be managed as
follows. If there is a regular fall from the source to the city, without any
intervening hills that are high enough to interrupt it, but with depressions in
it, then we must build substructures to bring it up to the level as in the case
of channels and conduits. If the distance round such depressions is not great,
the water may be carried round circuitously; but if the valleys are extensive,
the course will be directed down their slope. On reaching the bottom, a low
substructure is built so that the level there may continue as long as possible.
This will form the "venter," termed Κοιλἱα by the Greeks. Then, on reaching the
hill on the opposite side, the length of the venter makes the water slow in
swelling up to rise to the top of the hill.
6. But if there is no such venter made in the valleys, nor any substructure
built on a level, but merely an elbow, the water will break out, and burst the
joints of the pipes. And in the venter, water cushions must be constructed to
relieve the pressure of the air. Thus, those who have to conduct water through
lead pipes will do it most successfully on these principles, because its
descents, circuits, venters, and risings can be managed in this way, when the
level of the fall from the sources to the city is once obtained.
7. It is also not ineffectual to build reservoirs at intervals of 24,000
feet, so that if a break occurs anywhere, it will not completely ruin the whole
work, and the place where it has occurred
can easily be found; but such reservoirs should
not be built at a descent, nor in the plane of a venter, nor at risings, nor
anywhere in valleys, but only where there is an unbroken level.
8. But if we wish to spend less money, we must proceed as follows. Clay pipes
with a skin at least two digits thick should be made, but these pipes should be
tongued at one end so that they can fit into and join one another. Their joints
must be coated with quicklime mixed with oil, and at the angles of the level of
the venter a piece of red tufa stone, with a hole bored through it, must be
placed right at the elbow, so that the last length of pipe used in the descent
is jointed into the stone, and also the first length of the level of the venter;
similarly at the hill on the opposite side the last length of the level of the
venter should stick into the hole in the red tufa, and the first of the rise
should be similarly jointed into it.
9. The level of the pipes being thus adjusted, they will not be sprung out of
place by the force generated at the descent and at the rising. For a strong
current of air is generated in an aqueduct which bursts its way even through
stones unless the water is let in slowly and sparingly from the source at first,
and checked at the elbows or turns by bands, or by the weight of sand ballast.
All the other arrangements should be made as in the case of lead pipes. And
ashes are to be put in beforehand when the water is let in from the source for
the first time, so that if any of the joints have not been sufficiently coated,
they may be coated with ashes.
10. Clay pipes for conducting water have the following advantages. In the
first place, in construction:—if anything happens to them, anybody can repair
the damage. Secondly, water from clay pipes is much more wholesome than that
which is conducted through lead pipes, because lead is found to be harmful for
the reason that white lead is derived from it, and this is said to be hurtful to
the human system. Hence, if what is produced from it is harmful, no doubt the
thing itself is not wholesome.
11. This we can exemplify from plumbers, since in them the natural colour of
the body is replaced by a deep pallor. For when lead is smelted in casting, the fumes
from it settle upon their members, and day after day burn out and take away all
the virtues of the blood from their limbs. Hence, water ought by no means to be
conducted in lead pipes, if we want to have it wholesome. That the taste is
better when it comes from clay pipes may be proved by everyday life, for though
our tables are loaded with silver vessels, yet everybody uses earthenware for
the sake of purity of taste.
12. But if there are no springs from which we can construct aqueducts, it is
necessary to dig wells. Now in the digging of wells we must not disdain
reflection, but must devote much acuteness and skill to the consideration of the
natural principles of things, because the earth contains many various substances
in itself; for like everything else, it is composed of the four elements. In the
first place, it is itself earthy, and of moisture it contains springs of water,
also heat, which produces sulphur, alum, and asphalt; and finally, it contains
great currents of air, which, coming up in a pregnant state through the porous
fissures to the places where wells are being dug, and finding men engaged in
digging there, stop up the breath of life in their nostrils by the natural
strength of the exhalation. So those who do not quickly escape from the spot,
are killed there.
13. To guard against this, we must proceed as follows. Let down a lighted
lamp, and if it keeps on burning, a man may make the descent without danger. But
if the light is put out by the strength of the exhalation, then dig air shafts
beside the well on the right and left. Thus the vapours will be carried off by
the air shafts as if through nostrils. When these are finished and we come to
the water, then a wall should be built round the well without stopping up the
vein.
14. But if the ground is hard, or if the veins lie too deep, the water supply
must be obtained from roofs or higher ground, and collected in cisterns of
"signinum work." Signinum work is made as follows. In the first place, procure
the cleanest and sharpest sand, break up lava into bits of not more than a pound
in weight, and
mix the sand in a mortar trough with the strongest lime in the proportion of
five parts of sand to two of lime. The trench for the signinum work, down to the
level of the proposed depth of the cistern, should be beaten with wooden beetles
covered with iron.
15. Then after having beaten the walls, let all the earth between them be
cleared out to a level with the very bottom of the walls. Having evened this
off, let the ground be beaten to the proper density. If such constructions are
in two compartments or in three so as to insure clearing by changing from one to
another, they will make the water much more wholesome and sweeter to use. For it
will become more limpid, and keep its taste without any smell, if the mud has
somewhere to settle; otherwise it will be necessary to clear it by adding
salt.
In this book I have put what I could about the merits and varieties of water,
its usefulness, and the ways in which it should be conducted and tested; in the
next I shall write about the subject of dialling and the principles of
timepieces.
Here ends Book VIII of Vitruvius; he continues
the discussion in Book IX.