Читать книгу One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money - Harold Morse Dunphy - Страница 217

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An old gentleman living in a western town of 5,000 people, unable to do hard work, but obliged to earn his own living, hit upon a plan that brought him a small income upon which he could live with comfort. His plan was to make a simple water filter; and, as the local water supply was not of the best, he sold all he could make.

Taking a small wooden pail, not painted on the inside, he bored a hole in the bottom and covered the bottom of the pail with flannel. Then he put in a layer of coarsely powdered charcoal to a depth of 2 inches, then a 8-inch layer of coarse sand, and on top of this a 8-inch layer of coarse powdered limestone. Setting the pail over a jar, he allowed the water from the faucet to drip slowly into the pail, where it was thoroughly filtered before going into the jar, and was therefore perfectly safe for drinking.

This first filter he sold for 75 cents, and with the profits on this sale he bought several more of the pails and a quantity of the charcoal, with a few yards of flannel, and made these up as before. The people of his town were glad to get so good a filter for that price and he supplied several hundred families, and his net profits were sufficient to maintain him. He is now making filters for other towns.