Word: pumps
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...every look-ma-no-hands schoolboy cyclist knows, the shortest distance between two points should never be a straight line. Take the 3,000 miles across the country, and this week 2,000 bikers are doing exactly that. Instead of pumping along in the breakdown lane of some Cartesian interstate, they are savoring a cyclist's delight, a 4,250-mile route that meanders through two U.S. parks (Yellowstone and Grand Teton), five major historic sites, 25 national forests and just about every one-air-pump hamlet from Astoria, Ore., to Williamsburg...
Except for a few wealthy citizens who dig private wells in their back gardens, New Yorkers get most of their water from a haphazard network of more than 100 public pumps. In addition, bands of "tea-water men" fill up their carts at springs near Fresh Water Pond, north of the city, and then sell the water in the streets for 3 pence a hogshead. But New York pump water is brackish, so much so that horses of out-of-town strangers refuse to drink...
...build a roofed wooden reservoir of 10 by 60 by 140 feet holding 628,000 gallons. The rest was invested in the key part of Colics' scheme: a steam engine. Although there are a number of these devices in Europe, only one was ever shipped to America, to pump out a copper mine in New Jersey, and it was destroyed by fire in 1773. Colles decided, however, to build one of his own, and the 18-inch cylinder was cast in New York last year. (Said the New York Gazetteer: "The first performance of the kind ever attempted...
Benjamin Franklin inspected the Turtle in Bushnell's workshop and praised it to General Washington, who later described it as "an effort of genius." But Bushnell has been having trouble with the vessel: the pump broke down and had to be replaced; the ventilator had to be altered to draw in fresh air through one tube and eject stale air through another. To help out, the Connecticut Council of Safety decided last February to award Bushnell £60 to carry on his work...
developed by Dr. John de Normandie, who first analyzed the waters. He persuaded local authorities to brighten the town and drain some nearby marshes. His pump room is 40 feet long, and the baths can be refilled every five minutes. Philadelphia Physician Benjamin Rush recommends the treatment for "hysteria, palsy, epilepsy, certain stages of the gout, diseases of kidneys or bladder, all female obstructions [and] worms in children." Bristol is a market town on the Delaware River, about 20 miles northeast of Philadelphia, and the New York-Philadelphia stage (30 shillings) passes through daily except Sundays. Accommodations are available...