Vintage book from the city of Reading, Pennsylvania (PA, Pa., Penn., Penna), which is in Berks County, stated on the title page as the '34th Annual Report of the Board of Water Commissioners, to the Select and Common Councils of the City of Reading'. It covers the fiscal year April 4, 1898 through April 3, 1899 and was published on May 31, 1899. Size is 6 1/8 inches wide x 9 1/4 inches tall with 194 pages and blue cloth covers covered on the inside front and back covers with the expected antique patterned paper. Printed by W. Rosenthal, City Printer.

What is particularly neat about this rare book is that the inside pages are in excellent shape, with key tissue paper inserts and pullouts still present in terrific condition. In addition to having 2 photos and many tables in the report, there is a tissue insert table on Annual Rainfall 1880-1898 (labelled Plate 3), and two pull-out tissue inserts, Daily Consumption of Water compared with mean daily temperature and daily rainfall (Plate 1), and Daily Height of Maidencreek (Maiden Creek) compared with daily rainfall and turbidity of water (Plate 2). We have shown images of each of these, as well as of the covers, inside cover, and some pages, so please allow time for these to load (in some of the images you will also see another small blue book which we just used to prop open some pages for shooting).

While the inside pages are great, the condition of the outside covers is poor. There is old water damage to the front and back covers, causing wrinkling or buckling, discoloration, etc., as can be seen in the images, how the inside pages avoided this is surprising. The outer cover corners are bumped or worn, with wear also to the book edges. While all pages appear to be present, it looks like the book was opened too far at the double page before the title page, resulting in paper tearing along the binding edge, or perhaps there was a page here that was removed, we don't know for sure, it just doesn't look smoothly bound here. The antique book's pages do have some folding at the corner edges, some slight wear or dirt along the edge sides, and we noted a few tiny dots on a few pages and one small circle stain on one page.

Still a terrific bit of history for anyone collecting historical memorabilia related to Reading, Pennsylvania or its surrounding areas, or for anyone interested in the science or management of water (water commissions, water boards, rainfall, drinking water, etc.).

Please note that we have other books listed for sale. If you wish to purchase more than one book, please e-mail us before placing the order since the shipping information has been inputted for a purchase of just one and will not calculate the savings you would get when purchasing more than one shipped together in the same package (we would be pleased to calculate this for you).