Flow of Water in Pipes

Abstract

This book of 236 beautifully printed quarto pages presents the results of more than fifty years study of hydraulic problems by a man of unusual capacity for observation and analysis. The material relates mainly to the flow of water in pipes, and was intended to be the first part of a complete treatise on hydraulics, but these pages represent all of the work that the author's strength and life permitted. The studies were made in the first place to find means for accurately measuring the water supplied by the Essex Company of Lawrence, Mass., to the various mills on its canals for power. The work was afterwards greatly extended by Mr. Mills, we may believe, for the pure love of finding the exact truth. We know that for a period of many years the project of a treatise on hydraulics lay dormant while even more important matters occupied his attention. The statement of experimental methods used in 1875, beginning on page 147, leaves one in doubt which to admire most, the sturdy, simple measures taken to find out the exact truth, or the clear, concise English in which the methods are pictured. These pages bring to the writer the memory of what he saw at Lawrence during the years when he helped Mr. Mills with other matters. He remembers the numerous observing stations manned by careful, conscientious young men, observing water levels at predetermined intervals, and writing down the results to be plotted and averaged and compared, until everything was checked and accounted for beyond a possible doubt. The writer knows something of the thorough methods of Mr. Mills for they were also applied to the work which he did at Lawrence. Each of the experimental results stated in the tables