page_title: Machine de Marly
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Machine de Marly / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Machine de Marly Bird's Eye View
context_page_description: The Machine de Marly, also known as the Marly Machine or the Machine of Marly, was a large hydraulic system in Yvelines, France, built in 1684 to pump water from the river Seine and deliver it to the Palace of Versailles.
  King Louis XIV needed a large water supply for his fountains at Versailles. Before the Marly Machine was built, the amount of water delivered to Versailles already exceeded that used by the city of Paris, but this was insufficient, and fountain-rationing was necessary. Ironically most of the water pumped by the Marly Machine ended up being used to develop a new garden at the Château de Marly. However, even if all the water pumped at Marly had been supplied to Versailles, it still would not have been enough: the fountains running à l'ordinaire required at least four times as much.
  The Machine de Marly, based on a prototype at the Château de Modave, consisted of fourteen gigantic water wheels, each roughly 11.5 meters or 38 feet in diameter, that powered more than 250 pumps to bring water 162 metres up a hillside from the Seine River to the Louveciennes Aqueduct. Louis XIV had countless schemes and inventions that were supposed to bring water to his fountains.
context_section_description: The engraving illustrated here describes the functioning of the machine as follows:
  THE MACHINE OF MARLY is built on an arm of the Seine river. It consists of 14 wheels of 30 feet [11.9 m; 39 English feet] in diameter, the axles of which have two cranks, one which moves the pistons which push the water into the pipes and raise it up to the first reservoir; the other moves a system of crossarm levers which run the length of the mountain up to the highest reservoir. These crossarms power the pumps which are in the reservoirs and pump the water from the lower reservoir to the upper and from there to the top of the tower which is at the summit of the mountain, from where it runs over a large aqueduct which feeds different pipes to furnish all the waters of Versailles and Marly.
  Pumping technology of the era of Louis XIV did not allow the delivery of water from the Seine to the top of the aqueduct of Louveciennes, an elevation differential of more than 150 meters (490 feet) in just one stage, so two intermediate pump relay stations were built, one at 48  meters (156 feet) and another at 99 meters (322 feet) above the river. Pumps in the relay locations were powered by two sets of oscillating timber and metal tie-rod linkages, driven by the river paddle wheels. A reservoir at each station buffered the water supply for each level of pumps.
caption: Engraved view of the Machine de Marly, looking downriver
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