Abstract: A cooling tower has a circular cooling section, the top of which is a hot water distribution basin to which hot water is pumped while the bottom is a collecting basin. Within the cooling section is a fill comprised of a multitude of slats and wire grids through which the slats project so that the slats are carried by wire grids. The grids in turn are supported at several levels on a framework that rests on the collecting basin and extends upwardly to the distribution basin, but the framework is not suspended from that basin, so the distribution basin carries only its own weight and the weight of the pool of hot water within it. That water flows into the fill from nozzles in the distribution basin and cascades through the multitude of slats in the fill, thereby becoming quite finely divided. Air, on the other hand, passes transversely through the fill and absorbs heat from the water so as to lower the temperature of the water.