Eastern times., 1856-04-17
WistelIang.
The Pressure of Water.

| Many practical mistakes, some of them of
I disastrous character, says the New Church
Herald, result from not understanding few
simple principles in regard to the pressure of
water. The particles of water move over each
other with the greatest facility, and hence re-
suits that simple law, that the pressure result
ing from action upon any portion of confined
body of water, is equal in every direction.
| A correspondent of the New York CONNER
cial Advertiser relates that friend of his up
in Westchester, not understanding this prn-
pie of the science of Hydrostatics, subjected
himself to considerable inconvenience short
time ago. He says:
"a friend of mine in the country, desiring
to secure good supply of rain-water, con-
structed tank twenty feet square under a
corner of his house. In the top of this tank
he placed an iron pipe, which reached up thi--
ty feet 10 gutter under the roof of his house,
intending 10 fill his tank thereby, and when
full, the water from the roof would flow off by
another gutter.
| After good heavy rain, he found his tank
had not ouly been filled, but had burst. He
reconstructed it of stronger plank, but it no
sooner filled than it burst second time al
though the tank was under ground, with two
or three feet OF earth upon it. Reconstruct
ing it the third time, he found it altogether
strong enough to hold itself full of water with
out leaking drop, until he inserted this pipe,
and attempted to fill that also. Then the tank
burst, although the pipe was only one inch in
diameter, and being thirty feet in length, con-
tanned only about fifteen or sixteen pounds
weight in water.
He was puzzled on finding that this compar-
atively small amount of water bearing perpen-
dicularIy on the water in the tank, burst a
tank of strong plank, hooped round by strong
bands of iron. He is puzzled still, and be-
fore he builds another tank, he would like to
know how strong he must make it, to resist
the mysterious power exercised by the per-
peHdicular pipe of one inch diameter by thirty
feet in length, when filled also with water,
although said pipe, when full, contains only
about two gallons. Ia other words, what ex-
pansive power is produced on the water in the
tank by reason OF the contents of this pipe
bearing on the water in the tank when both
are full 90
A correspondent of the Real Estate Regis
ter gives the following answer to the above
inquiry:
81 answer for the benefit of those who may
not be able to arrive at the result by mathe-
matical reasoning, that the whole expansive
power exerted in the tank is 1892 tons the
power exerled against each side of the tank is
432 tons over and above what was exerted by
the water in the tank before the tube was
filled.
If the gentleman thinks it too expensive to
build tank strong enough to resist that pow
er, he can insert faucet near the lower end
of the tube and have it operated by a lever
with an air-tight hollow ball attached to the
end Of it and placed inside the tank, and wher
the tank is full it will cause the ball to rise
, and shut off the water in the tube, when il
T may be conveyed away by a pipe or gutter
or he may insert pipe in the tank and carry
, it miles distant if he chooses, over hills Of
. other distractions twenty-nine feet high ex
! haust the air from inside Of it, and insert th'
} end of the tube in an open tank or reservoir
and all the surplus water will be carried Of
! without any injury to the tank, if it was bull
. no stronger than the first"