History of Sanitation
Forfatter: J. J. Cosgrove
År: 1910
Forlag: Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co
Sted: Pittsburgh U.S.A
Sider: 124
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HISTORY OF SANITATION
73
that time written of the engineering projects success-
fully carried out by the engineers of the mound builders no
doubt some surprising facts would be revealed to contem-
porary man; for wherever men have existed, whether in
China, Japan, Egypt, Europe, England or, as we are
informed by astronomers, on Mars, gigantic works of
irrigation have been successfully undertaken, and in most
of the places mentioned conduits or aqueducts to supply
water to inhabitants of communities were constructed.
Reasoning then by analogy it would be safe to infer that
before the race of mound builders became extinct they
built works of equal importance if not of equal endurance.
This belief is borne out by the fact that long before Colum-
bus discovered America, the Aztecs of Mexico built an
aqueduct to supply the ancient city, built on the site of the
present City of Mexico. How long the aqueduct supplied
the city before Cortez, in his expedition to conquer Mexico,
destroyed the works, in 1521, nobody knows and the truth
will probably never be told. The fact of the existence of
such a structure is interesting chiefly as showing that in the
matter of supplying communities with water the ancient
tribes of Mexico and America had made considerable pro-
gress long before Europeans set foot on shore. It was in
Mexico, too, that the next aqueduct in point of time was
constructed. This work was built during the period be-
tween the years 1553 and 1570, under the supervision of
Friar Francisco Tembleque, a Franciscan monk, and served
for about two centuries to carry water from the mountain
Lacayete to the city of Otumba, state of Hidalgo, district
of Apart, a distance of 27.8 miles.
The aqueduct, which is known as the Zempoala, in-
cluded three arched bridges of a maximum height of 124
feet. This aqueduct is further interesting from the fact
that the original agreement, under which the work was
performed, is still in existence, a copy of which was pub-
lished in the Engineering News, 1888, from which the
following copy is taken.
The first bridge contains forty-six arches, the second