FIRE AND WATER.
MANY owners of private residences in country places where there is no water supply, as well as those who desire water for fire protection for mills and factories in small villages similarly conditioned, can easily solve the problem without going to any elaborate expense. A storage reservoir or tank of metal or wood is raised on an iron or steel frame to the requisite height for obtaining the pressure for the upper floors. Connected with the well is a pipe, with a pump operated by a windmill or a gasolene,hot air, gas, electricity, or petroleum engine. A heater is generally added, together with the pipe necessary for connections. The cost will be comparatively small, and the saving in fire insurance rates, great.
IN New South Wales there are nearly 1,500 stations devoted to taking observations of the rainfall, increased and decreased volume of the rivers, and evaporations generally. Very full reports are given for the year 1896. It was an unfortunate year for the colony,as the drought was so severe that,except through two very small areas, it was productive of great loss. During that year the average rainfall for the whole colony was 22.6, or twelve per cent, below the average—which means that the consequences and conditions were much more disastrous than the figures showed. Many districts, especially those in the extreme west of the colony, were injured to a terrible extent—the average rainfall being from twenty to sixty-three degrees below normal.
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