Cistern

“ Where there are no running streams or springs, and the nature of the ground does not favor the digging of wells, the people rely upon cisterns to supply their wants. A cistern is simply a large excavation in the earth or rock; if in the former, it is lined with stone and cement to make it water-proof, but if it is hewn in the solid rock no such precaution is necessary. Water is collected here during the rainy season and treasured up for use in the dry summer. ”

“ We have never done congratulating ourselves on possessing this cistern, for the water is always cool and sweet, and as our roof is very large, it soon fills the cistern, which holds three hundred barrels, and lasts all the year. ”

“ Anyone who knows how a cistern behaves can imagine the peculiar noises that issued. It seemed possessed by a demon bent on preventing sleep. It would s-s-siss for a few moments, then gurgle, then hiss, then a rush would come, followed by a steady tap, tap, tap that speedily became maddening. Water on the brain with a vengeance! Wet hair and running water in combination! This proximity to the cistern was, however, an accident carefully avoided the second night, but several poor unfortunates would always have to suffer it. It was, however, a minor evil compared with others. ”

“ By inspection it will appear evident, that, turn the instrument as you will, the end of the long limb will be always immersed in mercury, and the contained air forced against the sides of the cistern. To keep the air in the cistern always in one part clear of the long or vacuum tube, if suspended in a box large enough to allow of its swinging freely on the hooks DD, no error will arise. The cistern end should always be carried uppermost in travelling or moving. ”

“ Any cistern, sufficiently high above the garden, will do. Where a cistern in the roof is supplied with a high service pipe, a fountain with a jet thirty or forty feet high, according to the height of the [Pg 346] house, might be had in the garden at no other expence than that of fixing descending, and horizontal conducting pipes. ”

“ A water-tight platform is formed of stucco—say forty feet square—surrounded by a wall two feet high, so as to form a tank. Below this is a sunken cistern—say eight feet square—into which the drainage would be conducted from the upper platform. In this cistern a force-pump is fitted, and the cistern is half filled with a solution of saltpetre and sal-ammoniac.
A layer of weeds and rubbish is now laid upon the platform for a depth of three feet, surmounted by a layer of good dung from the cattle sheds of one foot thick. ”

“ They are found all through the country; and even where there is a stream of water the whole year round it is often the custom to keep cisterns filled with water, to guard against an unusual drought. Some of the cities of the East have vast cisterns beneath them, and if you ever go to Constantinople you will see the cistern of 'The Thousand and One Pillars,' which gets its name from the number of columns that support the roof. ”

“ Where the sunken garden had been filled in a wide stone well house, the like of which can be found at many of the farmhouses in the Harpeth Valley, had been built and a chain wheel and bucket drew up the water from the deep cistern, which was supplied with underground pipes from the south wing of the Poplars.
"There is no water as soft as open-top cistern water, aerated by a chain and bucket," father had informed me, and he and Dabney consumed buckets of it, while Mammy refused anything else for cooking purposes and insisted on a nightly bath of it for my face. ”

“ A pewter cistern was formerly part of the furniture of a well- appointed dining-room; the plates were rinsed in it, when necessary, during the meal. A magnificent silver cistern is still preserved in the dining-room at Burghley House, the seat of the Marquis of Exeter. ”

“ Moreover, the great area of the cistern was no inconsiderable bar to the accuracy I expected. However, as I do not recollect experiments of this kind any-where recorded, these, perhaps, may give some satisfaction to such persons, who may have the curiosity to desire some knowlege on this subject. Were I to make any more observations of this kind, I would chuse an upright parallelopiped, not above 18 or 20 inches in the side of the square; into which the person should let himself down by steps nailed to the side: for in so small an area the motion of the water would sooner subside ”

“ Thus, his curiosity had never been strong enough to induce him to look into the cistern. Was it not worth while to assure himself of the possibility of its conversion to the use suspected? He turned, and walked back rapidly—down the stairway, up the terraces, and through the Hippodrome. Suddenly he was struck with the impolicy of presenting himself to the cistern-keeper in his present costume—it would be such a help to identification by Demedes. So he continued on to the monastery, and resumed the black gown and tall hat. ”

“ The leaves of this tree resemble those of the laurel, but are larger, wider, and more curved; they come forth in perpetual succession, so that the tree always remains green. On the north side of the trunk, are two large tanks, or cisterns, of rough stone, or rather one cistern divided, each half being twenty feet square, and sixteen spans in depth. One of these contains water for the drinking of the inhabitants; and the other that which they use for their cattle, washing, and such like purposes. ”

“ February 15th—After a march of ten hours and a half, I arrived at Sermein, having had some difficulty in crossing the muddy plain. The neighbourhood of Sermein is remarkable for great numbers of cisterns and wells hewn in the rock: in the town every house has a similar cistern; those in the plain serve to water the peasants' cattle in the summer, for there are no springs in these parts. ”

“ Elmira says the cistern is full of fish and it must be some of the biggest ones flopping around. If they hadn't been worked up and excited and talking all together and thinking of Hank hanging out in the blacksmith shop they might have suspicioned something, for that flopping and splashing kept up steady. Maybe I should have mentioned sooner it had been a dry summer and there was only three or four feet of water in the cistern and Hank wasn't in scarcely up to his big hairy chest. When Elmira says the cistern is full of fish that woman opens the trap door and looks in. ”

“ Instead of putting the swollen grain into bags, some prefer to grind it under vertical edge-stones, or between a pair of horizontal rollers, and then to lay it in a cistern, and separate the starchy liquor by elutriation with successive quantities of water well stirred up with it. The residuary matter in the sacks or cisterns contains much vegetable albumen and gluten, along with the husks; when exposed to fermentation, it affords a small quantity of starch of rather inferior quality. ”

“ Whenever any Maltster is about to place any grain or other commodity in a cistern, to be steeped for the making of malt, he shall first give the proper officer, when the malt-house is within a city or town, twenty-four hours' notice, or if not within a city or town, forty-eight hours' notice, of his intention to steep grain as aforesaid, stating in every such notice the day and hour at which he will place the grain in the cistern, the quantity of grain which he will then place in such cistern, and describing the cistern by number or otherwise in which it is to be placed. ”

“ The skinned roots are thrown into a large cistern, with a perforated bottom, and there exposed to the action of a copious cascade of pure water, till this runs off quite unaltered. The cleansed roots are next put into the hopper of a mill, and are subjected to the powerful pressure of two pairs of polished rollers of hard brass; the lower pair of rollers being set much closer together than the upper. ”

“ Usually it is not advisable to build cisterns for storing water for barn use, since they are too expensive if built as large as needed. A cow requires from forty to eighty pounds of water daily in the summer. If sixty pounds be taken as the average, it will be seen that it would require a cistern of three hundred and fifty barrels capacity to supply a herd of fifty animals for one month. ”

“ When sufficiently steeped, and after the water has been discharged, the barley is thrown (or in some instances drops through a valve or socket) from the cistern into the couch, where it must by law be let remain undisturbed not less than twenty-six hours, but longer if thought necessary. It is then spread out upon the floor to a thickness greater or less, according to the season and temperature of the atmosphere, at the discretion of the maltster. ”

“ Here it undergoes the process of draining for a few days or weeks, and is then ready for the market. The molasses is received beneath in cisterns, and when they become filled, it is taken out and conveyed into barrels or hogsheads and shipped. When all the molasses is removed from the cistern, an inferior kind of sugar is re-manufactured, which is called cistern-sugar, and sold at a lower price. When the grinding has once commenced, there is no cessation of labour till it is completed. From beginning to end, a busy and cheerful scene continues. ”

“ This cistern they have been obliged to build above ground, lest the water should become tainted by the heat of the climate, which a free access of air prevents; consequently should a fortunate shot break the cistern, the defenders would be reduced to the utmost necessity. ”

“ Better to sit at the waters’ birth, Than a sea of waves to win; To live in the love that floweth forth, Than the love that cometh in. Be thy heart a well of love, my child, Flowing, and free, and sure; For a cistern of love, though undefiled, Keeps not the spirit pure. ”

“ No grain shall be placed in any cistern to steep or wet, nor shall any malt be placed in any kiln to be dried, nor moved from any such kiln after the drying is completed, except between the hours of eight o'clock in the morning and five o'clock in the afternoon. ”

“ To contain this enormous quantity of fluid, Nature has formed large cisterns within him, from which, once filled, he draws at pleasure the quantity he wants, and pours it into his stomach with the same effect as if he then drew it from a spring, and with this he travels, patiently and vigorously, all day long, carrying a prodigious load upon him, through countries infected with poisonous winds, and glowing with parching and never-cooling sands. ”

“ They all were adhering to the sides of the reservoirs as if afraid to encounter their more powerful companions. Quantities of turbot, also reared for sale, were in one of the cisterns, darting with the greatest rapidity in the water when the keeper threw in pieces of sardines for them to eat. ”

“ Then we went to the little temple near (on the pillars of which we found riders on elephants and lions, and other strange barbaric representations) , looked at the large artificial cistern, now called Wot Mahemût, which must have taken the place of the river during the dry season, and rode back again to Ben Naga, at four o’clock.
When we came forth from the mountains, we met great herds of wild asses, which always stopped a little in front of us, as if inviting us to chase them. They are grey or reddish grey, with a white belly, and all have a strongly marked black stripe down the back ”

“ When the boiling has continued for the requisite time (6-8 hours) , the steam is shut off, and the kier liquor blown off, when the yarn is washed in the kier by filling the latter with water and then running off, this operation being repeated two or three times. The hanks are now transferred to a stone cistern provided with a false bottom, from beneath which a pipe connects the cistern with a well situated below the floor line. The well contains a solution of bleaching-powder, usually of 2° Tw. ”

“ P. 74. The identification of the Bin bir derek with the cistern of Philoxenus is a mere surmise—a monogram on the columns is said to stand for Εὖγε φιλόξενε! The researches of Forscheimer (and Strzygowski) give a more likely elucidation which, with the Yeri Baian Seraï, a much larger cistern still full of water, will be considered later on. See p. 539 and cf. Lethaby and S., p. 248.
Pp. 78, 319. There were three localities at CP. which might conceivably 363 have been called Hebdomon by the inhabitants: 1. The seventh of the fourteen parishes of the city as described in the Notitia; 2. ”

“ Wells, in many places, must be deep, and then often furnish but a meager supply of water, while cisterns large enough to supply all wants are expensive. In addition to artificial lakes, wells, and cisterns, there are often streams, or best of all, springs, to be drawn upon. ”

“ If the piece of woven wire is left in the hopper the meshes will get filled up, and the hopper will fill with leaves and trash of all kinds and run over, and no water get into the cistern—and if it does it will not be pure. ”

“ Almost every house had a cistern or well in a garden behind, in which likewise there were vines with ripe grapes, forming pleasant arbours or shady walks; and in every garden there grew some tobacco, then hardly known, but now commonly used in England, with which the women of the place were then in use to stain their faces, to make them look young and fresh. In these gardens there likewise grew pepper, both Indian and common, fig-trees with fruit both white and red, peach-trees rather of humble growth, oranges, lemons, quinces, potatoes, and other fruits and roots. ”