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Wood′en pipe.

Wooden pipes (canules ligni) were common in ancient Rome in ordinary structures. Lead was used for the superior class of work, in conducting the water of the aqueducts to the fountains and baths. See aqueduct.

Lap-seam wooden pipe.

Pipes made of elm logs, bored, were used for the mains in the London water-works from 1582, when Morice started the works at London Bridge, down to about 1800. Lead-pipes had previously been used, as early as 1285, in bringing water from the springs of Tyburn to the city, and were also used by Morice for distributing-pipes. When it was determined, about 1800, to replace the wooden mains by cast-iron pipes, the New River Company had 400 miles of wooden mains, which were taken up, and iron substituted, at the rate of twenty miles per annum. The iron mains vary from 1 to 3 feet in diameter.

In the plan adopted at Ithaca. N Y., the pine or other lumber is sawed into lengths of proper thickness, and by peculiar hollow augers, of different sizes, is cut or bored out in concentric tubes or pipes, only leaving at last a small core, a little less than the bore of the smallest pipe. In this way a piece of timber, originally 10 inches in diameter, will turn out several pipes of say 10, 8, 6, 4, and 3 inches in outer diameter, and about 1 1/2 inches in thickness, or of greater thickness if required, by decreasing the sizes of the inner tubes proportionately. The hollow auger cuts away only from 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch. This piping is then properly strengthened by iron bands, and subjected to a bath of asphaltum or other cement to make it impervious to gas or water, and to prevent decay.

In Brisbane's pipe, the boards are steamed and bent longitudinally in cylindrical form till the edges lap on each other, and are then riveted.

1877.

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