Four bills of quantities (booklets printed on specially designated forms specifying work procedures, materials, and costs), prepared by the British Mandatory authorities as part of the process of expanding the pumping stations on the water line to Jerusalem. February-March 1946. English.
The water line bringing water from Rosh Ha'Ayin to Jerusalem was the product of one of the most ambitious engineering projects of the British Mandate period. In the course of the project, the springs of Rosh Ha'Ayin were diverted toward collection pools, and from there the water was forced up the mountainside to Jerusalem using advanced pumping technology. The new water line was perhaps the most important factor in solving Jerusalem's age-old water shortage. It functioned until Israel's War of Independence, whereupon, in the course of the fighting, it was cut off by the Jordanian Arab Legion.
The present four bills of quantities were drafted as part of the preparations for the expansion of the four pumping stations along the route of the water line: Rosh Ha'Ayin (Ras al-Ein), Latrun, Sha'ar HaGai (Bab al-Wad), and Saris (the former Arab village, replaced today by the Israeli village of Sho'eva, whose name was inspired by the pumping station).
The bills of quantities were either typewritten or mimeographed, and the cost figures were written in by hand. In the bill of quantities for the Latrun station, details were also given for an additional, adjacent project, namely the construction of housing units for soldiers.
Two of the bills of quantities are bound with the official booklet covers of the British Mandate Governmemt, with both printed and handwritten titles.
Pagination varies (total roughly 120 pp.), approx. 33 cm. Overall good condition. Stains. Tears to edges of some leaves. Minor blemishes. Bill of quantities for the Latrun station in good-fair condition, with open tears to edges of some leaves (not affecting text).

A postcard and two letters sent to and by illegal immigrants deported to the island of Mauritius (the so-called "Mauritius Exiles"). 1945. German.
1. Postcard sent from Mauritius to Vienna in 1945. Contains a brief, hand-written notice from a detainee by the name of Arnold Neumann: "Soon traveling from here to the Land of Israel." The front of the postcard bears the inked stamp of the British censor, the inked stamp of the Military Post, two inked stamps with the words "Return to Sender," and a sticker from the Aliyah Office of the Jewish Agency with the word "urgent." (Apparently, the postcard was sent to Vienna and marked "Return to Sender," but seeing as the sender was already en route to Palestine, it was forwarded to the Jewish Agency in Palestine, which in turn handed it back to Neumann.)
2-3. Two letters sent in 1945 to a detainee in Mauritius named Alice Oesterreicher from her husband, Jan, a soldier in the armed forces of the United States. (presumably a soldier in the unit of Czechoslovak expatriates known as the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade Group, originally established by the British army in the course of the war; eventually, some 140 members of the unit were attached to the US 3rd Army under the command of General George S. Patton.) The letters are in their original envelopes which bear the postage stamps and postmarks of the US army along with the inked stamps of the British censor.
The "Mauritius Exiles" were originally passengers on board the SS Atlantic, a ship carrying illegal Jewish immigrants to Palestine. The ship was intercepted by British forces, and its passengers were deported to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. The passengers had embarked from Bratislava in September 1940 and sailed by riverboat to the Romanian city of Tulcea, where they boarded the SS Atlantic. The ship made stopovers in Istanbul and Crete. At one point, the crew refused to take the vessel any further, whereupon the passengers took over the ship by force. Once the supply of coal had been exhausted, the passengers started using wooden furniture to burn as firewood, but as soon as this source of fuel was also exhausted, the vessel was brought to a standstill and discovered by the British fleet. The illegal immigrants were deported to Mauritius, where they remained for five years, and only managed to reach Palestine after WWII had ended, in August 1945.
Size varies. Good condition.