The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-04-09

London Standard: On Saturday
week the king and queen will pass out
through the struggling miles of the
East End, through ,Whitechapel, Mile
End, Stratford, and the rest, to the
open countryside at Chingtord, Where
the king will formally open" the vast
new reservoir, three miles long, which
has been constructed by the M~etropoli-
tan water board as a colossal storage
for the needs of London. And in
pressing the little button which will
start the machinery of the pumping
station, the king will BE inaugurating
a revolution in engineering which, at
its very birth, has wrought great
changes and may lead to u~nimagined
possibilities. 1t is a revolution which
ought to interest every London house.
holder each time that he turns on the
tap in the kitchen or the bathroom,
most important matter in the world,
for while he is working at the Office or
the factory. and thinking that the
big brains and great enterprises are
constantly in motion so that there
may be no hitch in his smallest needs.
The reservoir itself is wonderful. A
walk around the inner parapet, below
which in a week or two h water Will
lap, comes to exactly four miles and
q. Qu8TI6Is Inc dIGd VI IllS IGoCi NolI
liz over 460 acres, and its capacity
some 5000, 600, 900 gallons. But the
ordinary mind cannot hope to grasp
such a figure as ,000,000,000 gallons,
any more than it can appreciate how
far away the sun is. The best way
to put it is that this reservoir, con
structed after five years work, is a
very big lake, with a maximum depth
of about forty feet. One-third down
it's length it is cut in two by a huge
breakwater SO thatein stormy weather
the waves of the lake will not assunle
destructive proportions. That gives
also a good idea of the size of the
sheet of water.
Fifty Million Gallons a Day.
But the revolution has nothing to
do with the reservoir, in spite of Its
| size. The revolutionary part belongs &c
the of filling the lake when
the king presses the button. Then will
he start in motion a series of mighty
pumps of g. kind which the world has
never seen before. There are five
pumps four large ones, and one which
is half the size Of it's big brothers,
Each of the large pumps a the
power to lift easily from the River
Lea up into the reservoir 10000 gal
Ions of water a minute, which comes
to the stupendous total of $4,000, 0oC
gallons a day. The whole of the pumps
working together could fill UP the 81
| 0O0,00O,00 gallons capacity of the
reservoir in ten days. The only draw
back to such a feat is that the River
Lea, except in times of food. could
never keep such a rate of supply
going. The reservoir, indeed, is just a
storage cistern on a large scale. When
the river is In flood the surplus water
will be lifted up by the full battery
of pumps, and stored away For the
ordinary daily surplus flow of the
river and one small pump will be quite
s~uflcient.
With such figures. of power in mine
the new pumping house is at first q
disappointing sight. 1t is a long build.
ing with a high roof, and in one corner
of the foor is a small electric motor
running a modest air compressor
There are no huge engines rearing
their heads to the roof, with might.
cross beams of polished steel rising
and falling, as in the pumping station
with which most of us are familiar
4 But sunk in the floor are five circular
pits, and in each of these reposes I
strange looking machine, which to TIL.
unjnitiated might do equally well fol
a laundry.
Kind, youthful engineers took The
visiting novice In hand, and tried tt
explsin to him how II ID done--how