The daily rate taken throughout the year is considerably more variable than the monthly. There are days in some portions of the year when consumption by hotels and industrial activities is at a minimum. On the other hand, there are other days when those activities are at a maximum and the total draft will be correspondingly high. Experience has shown that the maximum total draft may vary from about 115 to nearly 200 per cent of the average. It is permissible, therefore, to take approximately for general purposes the maximum total daily consumption as 150 per cent of the average. Manifestly any total consumption will have an hourly rate which may vary greatly from the early morning hours, when the draft should be almost nothing, to the forenoon hours on certain days of the week, when the draft is a maximum. These variations have frequently been investigated, and it has been shown that the maximum rate per hour of a maximum day may sometimes rise higher than 300 per cent of the average hourly rate for the year. These considerations obviously attain their greatest importance in connection with the capacity of the plant, either power or gravity, from which the city directly draws its supply. The hourly capacity of the pumps or steam-plant furnishing the supply need not necessarily be equal to the maximum, since storage-reservoirs may be and usually are used; but the capacity of the pipe system leading from such storage-reservoirs must be equal to the maximum hourly rate required. =154. Supply of Fire-streams.=—The draft on a water-supply for fire-extinguishing purposes may have an important influence upon the hourly rate of consumption. These observations are particularly pertinent in connection with the water-supply of small cities where the draft of fire-engines may be considered a large percentage of the total hourly consumption. It is obviously impossible to assign precisely the number of fire-streams which may be required simultaneously in a city having a given population, but experiences of a considerable number of civil engineers furnish reasonable bases on which such estimates may be made. Table III exhibits such estimates as made by the civil engineers indicated. It is given by Mr. Emil Kuichling in the Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers for December, 1897. Probably no more reasonable estimate can be now presented. TABLE III. TABLE EXHIBITING ESTIMATED NUMBER OF FIRE-STREAMS REQUIRED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN AMERICAN CITIES OF VARIOUS MAGNITUDES.