Chain Pump - Square-pallet in China

Square-pallet in China

Chain pumps were also used in ancient China by at least the 1st century A.D. In China, they were also called dragon backbones. One of the earliest accounts was a description by the Han Dynasty philosopher Wang Chong (A.D. 27–97) around A.D. 80. Unlike those found in the West, chain pumps in China resembled the square-pallet type instead of the pear-shaped bucket. Illustrations of such Chinese chain pumps show them drawing water up a slanted channel. These were sometimes powered by hydraulics of a rushing current against a horizontal water wheel acting against a vertical wheel, and others by a horizontal mechanical wheel acting upon a vertical wheel that was pulled by the labor of oxen. There were also square-pallet chain pumps operated by pedals.

From the 1st century onwards, chain pumps were widespread throughout the Chinese countryside. Chinese square-pallet chain pumps were used mostly for irrigation, though they found use in public works as well. The infamous Eastern Han court eunuch Zhang Rang (d. A.D. 189) once ordered the engineer Bi Lan (畢嵐) to construct a series of square-pallet chain pumps outside the capital city Luoyang. These chain pumps serviced the palaces and living quarters of the Luoyang; the water lifted by the chain pumps was brought in by a pipe system. Ma Jun, the renowned mechanical engineer of the Three Kingdoms era, also constructed a series of chain pumps for watering the palatial gardens of Emperor Ming of Wei (226–239).

From the 13th century onwards, the Chinese also used windmills (adopted from the Islamic world) to power square-pallet chain pumps. Yet there were other types of chain pumps besides the square-pallet design. In Song Yingxing's (1587–1666) encyclopedic book the Tiangong Kaiwu (1637), there is description and illustration of a cylinder chain pump, powered by waterwheels and leading water up from the river to an elevated plain of agricultural crops.