I'm sorry, but what major, high-flow, long-distance pipelines are you referring to having existed prior to 1859?
I'm not aware of any particularly significant examples.
The major exception would be water aqueducts, but these were not generally pipelines.
No major city had a long-distance water conduit or sewerage system by that time. London was just building its own sewerage system in 1860, and that comprised vaulted chambers of brick.
New York City's Catskills water system wasn't completed until 1915.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/history.shtm...
What was difficult was that, fundamentally, industrial manufacturing did not exist. Other than a small number of powered looms and ironworks.
That's cast and wrought iron. Bessemer steel had only just been patented (1856), but production wasn't scaled up for a number of years (initial attempts to license the method failed when licensees were unable to properly implement it).
Industrialisation is a rather significant bootstrapping process. Titusville Pennsylvania was a rural region, on the frontier, without access to viable transportation (that is, rivers or canals). Railroads existed, but with iron rather than steel rail, had limited tonnage capacity and were prone to splits rails.
I'm not aware of any particularly significant examples.
The major exception would be water aqueducts, but these were not generally pipelines.
No major city had a long-distance water conduit or sewerage system by that time. London was just building its own sewerage system in 1860, and that comprised vaulted chambers of brick.
New York City's Catskills water system wasn't completed until 1915.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/history.shtm...
What was difficult was that, fundamentally, industrial manufacturing did not exist. Other than a small number of powered looms and ironworks.
That's cast and wrought iron. Bessemer steel had only just been patented (1856), but production wasn't scaled up for a number of years (initial attempts to license the method failed when licensees were unable to properly implement it).
Industrialisation is a rather significant bootstrapping process. Titusville Pennsylvania was a rural region, on the frontier, without access to viable transportation (that is, rivers or canals). Railroads existed, but with iron rather than steel rail, had limited tonnage capacity and were prone to splits rails.