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The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Appendix to Volume XII

Note 10 — V.

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French and Italian Note-Books, May 30, 1858. A contributor to Appletons' Journal, writing in 1875, describes a surviving specimen of the old contrivances which then gave Salem its water-supply. "The presumption is that a description of this particular one answers for Hawthorne's pump, seeing that they were all alike. It is large enough for a mausoleum and looks not unlike one, made of slabs of dingy stone, like stained, gray gravestones set up on one end, in a square at the foundation, but all inclining inward at the top, where they are kept in position by a band of iron. A decaying segment of log appears, in which the pump-handle works in vain, now, however, since, being long out of use, it has no connection with the water below; on the front side are two circular holes, like a pair of great eyes, made for the insertion of the spouts; and, finally, a long-handled iron dish, like a saucepan or warming-pan on a smaller scale, is attached by an iron chain to the stone, by way of drinking-vessel. Altogether, though it may not strike an old Salem resident in that way, it seems to the stranger a very unique, antiquated, and remarkable structure."

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