Science & Tech
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On barrier islands, digging a well reaches only brackish water unfit to drink, and Hunting Island had no reliable natural source of drinkable water. To compensate, the lighthouse staff members and their families relied on cisterns, large underground storage tanks from which they could pump water. The lightkeeper's house was outfitted with gutters that caught rainwater and channeled it through buried pipes into the cisterns, and residents could then pump water from the cistern into the house. In 1890, two cisterns were built at the site of the new keepers' dwelling.
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