Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1910 — Antiquity of the Water Pump. [ARTICLE]

Antiquity of the Water Pump.

The water pump of to-day is but an improvement on a Grecian invention which first came into use during the reign of Ptolemies Phlladelphos and Energetes, 283 to 221 B. C. The name, which is very similar in all languages, is derived from the Greek word pempo, to send, or -throw. The most ancient description we have of a water pump is by Hero of Alexandria. There is no authentic account of the general use of the pump in Germany previous to the beginning pf the sixteenth century. At about that time the endless chain and bucket works for raising water from mines began to be replaced by pumps. In the seventeenth century rotating pumps, like the Pappenham engine, with two pistons, and the Prince Rupert, with one, were first used. Pumps with plunger pistons were invented by Morland, an Englishman, in 1674, and the double acting pump by De la Hire, the French academician.