Elephant assisting to lay down water-pipes near Kandy, in Ceylon, 1856. View of '...the great waterworks at present in course of erection upon Messrs. Morton and Tytler's Rajawelle estate...the cast-iron piping, extending to a length of nearly two miles (each length of pipe weighing about six hundredweight), has to be carried to the position it has to occupy, across logs of felled timber, over rocky and broken ground, up hills, and across ravines, where cart-roads could not be made, nor the feeble native Cooly possibly carry them. In this dilemma the energetic local engineer, Mr. John Brown...had recourse to elephants. [Here we see]...how the pipes are taken up upon the tusks and trunk by the elephant. By this means the piping will be laid at a moderate cost; though the elephants, from never having been trained, may not be able to screw the pieces together'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.
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