Almost all the sources of supply employed at the present day were utilized by civilized nations in ancient times, such as tanks and reservoirs for the direct collection of rainfall, springs, watercourses and j rivers, wells and lakes. Reservoirs for the collection of the flow from springs were also resorted to; but storage reservoirs in which the flood flow of streams is impounded by dams across valleys constitute a comparatively modern system of securing a supply of water, except in the very primitive form adopted for irrigation tanks in India; whilst the construction of masonry dams across valleys for the. formation of impounding reservoirs, though first introduced in Spain between three and four centuries ago for storing water for irrigation purposes, was not established upon correct principles before the second half of the 19th century.
There does not appear to be any record of how the cost of the various conduits, etc. was met and how water was distributed in the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, but at a much later date it is recorded in Queen Elizabeth's reign that there was a special law to punish people who stole water from the water carriers, and that the water carriers carried clubs.
Although various conduits and even lead pipes were laid in London and Paris, and possibly other cities, nothing seems to have been done until Jate in the 16th century in the way of establishing a water supply authority in any way resembling what is understood by the term at the present day.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.