tion in relation to his method of inspection. It was to avoid sending an inspector into each house. That is, if he shut off a section any time between the hours of 12 and 4, and there is no noise to be heard at the gates he assumes that all the fixtures within the section are in good order.

MR. HODGE gave an account of a leak where he shut off a line of pipe for twenty-four hours and a spring in the wheel-pit of a neighboring manufactory dried up as the result. A two-inch pipe had been run into a six-inch some fifteen feet below the surface and the plug had blown out. It had run for ten years in this way. He could detect leaks on the main pipes by going into the houses and listening at the place where the service pipe enters.

MR. BALDWIN gave an instance of a forty-inch pipe being entirely broken off by simply running across a culvert. There was no defect in the pipe to cause it.

MR. DARLING asked what the pressure was in Boston. MR. BALDWIN replied that it varied on high and low ground, but ranged from thirty to eighty pounds.

MR. DARLING said his experience had been confined to nothing less than sixty-five pounds to start with, and ran up to a hundred and thirty, and when a lead joint blew out it generally showed itself above ground in a short time.

MR. BALDWIN inquired whether the gentleman was of the opinion that a leak would necessarily appear at the surface if there was an easier way for it to find an outlet.

MR. DARLING replied: No, sir, and further said he was fortunately situated with but very few sewers and considerable country road. In his case, the water always appears on the surface when there is a leak in the pipes.

MR. LYON inquired whether any one had had any experience with waterphones.

MR. DARLING said he had tried one and it gave very good satisfaction. He had sent it to Mr. Nevons, of Cambridge, who, no doubt, had a report to make.

MR. NEVONS replied that before he said anything about the waterphone he wanted to say a word to the gentleman concerning his pressure. He then told of a superintendent who had a pressure on his pipes equal to that stated by Mr. Darling, and whose leaks did not come to the surface. In his opinion, Mr. Darling's soil was sandy.

MR. NEVONS here stated the cost of operating his works, showing that they were self sustaining. He thought it would be otherwise should the meter system be adopted in Cambridge. If such a system were adopted in his city it would be necessary to charge a minimum meter rate of at least ten dollars for all of that class of houses from which they now receive twenty-two dollars, and as they have a large number of five dollar rate houses it would be necessary to fix another minimum rate for them. Even in this case, it might become necessary to levy a special tax to meet any deficiency that might occur. He had tried the waterphone. At first, he began to grow scared and thought there was a leak every where. It is very sensitive. His only objection is, that it is a little too cumbersome. He carried a gate wrench when out inspecting, and liked it full as well. For a new inspector he should say that the waterphone, being so sensitive, was a very good thing.

It

MR. DARLING said the gentleman from Cambridge condemned meters because they would affect his pocket book, but he claimed that they would increase the revenue. had done so in Pawtucket, where during the past year they had paid the maintenance, interest, and four thousand dollars on the sinking fund. He believed it to be one of the very best preventives of waste. Yet he would acknowledge the importance of thorough inspection and he causes a thorough inspection of all fixtures to be made annually, whether or not there is a meter on the premises. So far as leaks on the main are concerned, all are liable to them. The police used to call him out in the night, but he has

requested them not to unless the leak was the size of a man's arm. He had a case on Main street, Pawtucket, where a lead joint blew out and filled a six-inch pipe which was laid for a force pump a hundred and fifty feet down the street, and then it came up through the paving.

MR. NEVONS. I am glad you are coming to own it.

MR. DARLING said that he never denied that they leaked in that way, but he said as soon as a leak occurred, the pressure would bring it to the surface.

MR. ELLIS said one who died a great many years before he was born, wrote

""Tis with our judgments as our watches, none

Go just alike, yet each believes his own."

Thus each individual is in danger of making too broad an application of his own experience. Mr. Darling has had the benefit of starting with all meters and so gets a return for all water delivered consumers, but of our older works which have grown up with a tariff rate and where meters are optional, we find but two classes using them.

First. Those using large houses with all the modern improvements and having small families, thus avoiding the regular or fixture rate.

Second. Those whose use of water is perceptibly so large that the water officials put on a meter in order to get a fair return for the water delivered.

Between these two classes exists a large range of customers, from some of whom the department would gain and from others, lose by their use. To require all consumers to put on meters would involve some cases of individual hardship, while for the municipality to do so, would be to incur a large expense. Neither is the demand a fair one that all consumers shall pay for just what they use and no more. Aside from the sanitary requirement for the use of a certain amount of water for personal cleanliness and the removal of household wastes regardless of cost, and which

in many instances the use of a meter would tend to restrict, there is a question whether water under pressure, delivered in small quantities, should be valued simply by its volume. No group of neighbors on a mountain side would expect to unite in bringing a spring half a mile, and then fix an arbitrary price per gallon on the water each might use, regardless of the element of cost or the benefits and advantages to each.

A town is but a large group. To have water delivered under pressure at any point of one's house, for tank, bath, or boiler, or even hose, is of value beyond the precise amount of water used. The cost of a certain proportion of the plant, the pipes in front of the premises, and the cost of maintenance, in short the cost of the ability, must not be overlooked, and where meters are used we have added the extra labor of reading and examining them. For these reasons, if meters are to be used, there should be a minimum rate per family, for family use and in all other cases, per meter. Substantially this plan is followed in Springfield. Yet when meters are applied to families, we almost always lose, as it is only those who are most careful regarding waste, who apply them. To be effective in checking waste, their application must be general, or the revenue will be reduced without accomplishing the object desired.

Neither could he agree with Mr. Darling as to the improbability of leaks in the mains existing for a long time without being discovered. When the streets of his town contain as many old drains, sewers and other underground channels for the passage of water as do those of many towns represented by those who have spoken, and when his pipes have been down fifteen to twenty years, such experience will not be so uncommon. Mr. Ellis had met several instances in his own experience where considerable streams had run into sewers and into gravel for a long time before being discovered.

Whether the water from a leak comes to the surface, or passes away underground through the earth or otherwise, depends upon the relation of the porosity of the ground or the size of the channel to the size of the leak.

MR. COGGESHALL gave his experience with the waterphone. He had been able by it to check much waste through the finding of leaks.

MR. LYON thought one cause of waste is the using of street hydrants by those who ought not to use them. He wanted the opinion of some gentleman who had cement lined pipe.

MR. HAWKES, in reply to Mr. Lyon's inquiry, stated that he did not have any trouble whatever with the cement lined main pipe at Malden. In reference to the best method of detecting leaks he thought it an excellent plan to divide a city into a number of sections, and at some convenient point in each section, cause a mercury gauge to be attached. By ascertaining the exact difference in levels between each gauge and the head of water in the distributing reservoir we learn what the actual pressure should be. At midnight there is a very little legitimate consumption; accordingly each gauge should indicate the full number of pounds for its level. The speaker related an incident in his experience when acting as an inspector for the City of Boston. They had been testing several sections with gauges as above described, and when at work on the section which includes the Charles street jail they noticed the indications of an existing leak. Upon investigation, a large amount of water was found flowing through a sewer. After two weeks search the leak was finally detected and repaired. The land on Charles street, in front of the jail, is filled and a ten-inch pipe had been laid from Cambridge street through this filled land. The leak was occasioned by this pipe being broken square across, caused no doubt, by settlement of the earth.