🧭 SAMAIN & Cie. Samain Water Meter (Système Samain) France, documented 1875-1880. Address recorded: 10 & 12 Rue Saint-Amand, Paris France 🏭 French manufacturer of water-measuring apparatus active by at least 1875. The company is known from the Samain four-cylinder water meter, illustrated in E.-O. Lami's Encyclopédie Industrielle (1875), and from period advertisements promoting water meters for steam-boiler feed-water measurement. A publication entitled Compteur Samain: Extraits des règlements officiels sur les compteurs à eau (1880) further confirms the commercial presence of the Samain meter system. What the above 1880 advert contains;

Boiler Feed-Water Meter (refer to 12page booklet) Note; the booklet is missing.

For steam boilers. The only meter that requires neither lubrication nor constant attention.

Suitable for use at all temperatures.

Reliable operation guaranteed.

Already adopted in numerous important installations.

10-12 Rue Saint-Amand, Paris. Samain & Cie (Paris, France). Manufacturer of industrial feed-water meters for steam boilers. Contemporary advertising promoted the meter as operating at all temperatures and requiring neither lubrication nor continuous supervision. Factory and offices located at 10-12 Rue Saint-Amand, Paris.

The title is revealing:

"Extracts of official regulations concerning water meters."

Based on the date (1880) and common French practice of the era, the Compteur Samain was most likely one a:

Piston / positive displacement meter Oscillating piston design The above sketches from Lami's Encyclopédie Industrielle (France, 1875) show the 4x chamber piston design.

French municipal metering in the 1870s-1880s was still dominated by positive-displacement concepts for domestic supply because municipalities cared most about low-flow accuracy. Without a diagram, however, this remains an informed hypothesis rather than fact.

In the 1870s, a four-cylinder arrangement would allow water entering a chamber, driving multiple pistons or plungers, each piston displacing a known volume, the motion being geared to a counting register.

What can be establish:

A Samain water meter existed by at least 1875.

A Samain system was recognized in France by 1880.

There was a dedicated publication titled: Compteur Samain: extraits des règlements officiels sur les compteurs à eau (Paris, 1880).

The device was sufficiently important to appear in industrial literature and regulatory discussions.