58

The Pulley.

[Book I. the same, and well beaten with an iron rammer." B. xxxvi, 23. Holland's Trans. The composition of this cement, differs from that which Dr. Shaw says has been used in modern times in the east; and which he thinks is the same as that of the ancients. He says the cisterns which were built by Sultan ben Eglib, in several parts of the kingdom of Tunis, are equal in solidity with the famous ones at Carthage, continuing to this day (unless where they been designedly broken,) as firm and compact, as if they were just finished. The composition is made in this manner: they take two parts of wood ashes, three of lime, and one of fine sand, which after being well sifted and mixed together, they beat for three days and nights incessantly with wooden mallets, sprinkling them alternately and at proper times, with a little oil and water, till they become of a due consistence. This composition is chiefly used in their arches, cisterns and terraces. But the pipes of their aqueducts, are joined by beating tow and lime together, with oil only, without any mixture of water. Both these compositions quickly assume the hardness of stone, and suffer no water to pervade them. Trav. 286.

If the Romans wished to have water perfectly pure, they made two and sometimes three cisterns, at different levels; so that the water successively deposited the impurities with which it might be charged. From this, we see that the recent introduction of two cisterns for the same purpose, in some of our best houses, is a pretty old contrivance. It in fact dates far beyond the Roman era. The famous cisterns of Solomon are examples of it. Rain-water was frequently boiled by the Romans before they used it. Pliny xxxi, 3. This was also an ancient practice among older nations. Herodotus, says the water of the Choaspes, which was drunk by the Persian kings, was previously boiled, and kept in vessels of silver. B. i, 188.

CHAPTER IX.

The Pulley: Its origin unknown-Used in the erection of ancient buildings and in ships-Ancient one found in Egypt-Probably first used to raise water-Not extensively used in ancient Grecian wells: Cause of this-Used in Mecca and Japan-Led to the employment of animals to raise water-Simple mode of adapting them to this purpose, in the east. Pulley and two buckets: Used by the Anglo Saxous, Normans, &c.-Italian mode of raising water to upper floors-Desagulier's mode-Self-acting, or gaining and losing buckets-Marquis of Worcester-Herou of Alexandria-Robert Fludd-Lever bucket engine -Bucket of Bologna-Materials of ancient buckets.

water.

PULLEY AND SINGLE BUCKET.

We now come to the period when some of the simple machines, or mechanical powers, as they are improperly named, were applied to raise When this first took place, is unknown: That it was at an early stage in the progress of the arts, few persons will doubt; but the time is as uncertain, as that of the invention of those admirable contrivances for transmitting and modifying forces. It was among the devices by which the famous structures of antiquity were raised; and Egyptian engineers under the Pharaohs, were undoubtedly acquainted with all the combinations of it now known. Had Vitruvius neither described it, nor mentioned its applications, a circumstance which occurred at the close of Cleopatra's life, would have sufficiently proved its general use, in the erection of elevated buildings under the Ptolemies. The Egyptian queen,

Chap. 9.]

Pulley and Single Bucket.

59

to avoid falling into the hands of Octavius, took refuge in a very high tower, accessible only from above. Into this, she and her two maids, drew up Antony, (who had given himself a fatal wound,) by means of ropes and pullies, which happened to be there, for the purpose of raising stones to the top of the building. But the pulley was an essential requisite in the sailing vessels of Egypt, India and China, in the remotest ages. Neither trading ships, nor the war fleets of Sesostris, or previous warriors, could have traversed the Indian ocean without this appendage to raise and lower the sails, or quickly to regulate their movements by halliards. The ancient Egyptians, says Mr. Wilkinson, "were not ignorant of the pulley." The remains of one have actually been disinterred, and are now preserved in the museum of Leyden. The sides are of athul or tamarisk wood, the roller of fir: part of the rope made of leef or fibres of the date tree, was found at the same time. This relic of former times, is supposed to have been used in drawing water from a well. Its date is uncertain.

There are reasons which render it probable that the single pulley, was devised to raise water and earth from wells, and probability is all that can ever be attained with regard to its origin. But may not the pulley have been known before wells? We think not, and for the following reasons: 1. Most barbarous people have been found in possession of some of the latter, but not of the former; and in the infancy of the arts, man has in all ages, had recourse to the same expedients, and in the same order. 2. Wells are not only of the highest antiquity, but they are the only known works of man in early times, in which the pulley could have been required or applied. 3. The importance of water in those parts of Asia where the former generations of men dwelt, must have urged them at an early period to facilitate by the pulley, the labor of raising it. That it preceded the invention of ships, and the erection of lofty buildings of stone, is all but certain; but for what purpose, except for raising water, the pulley could have previously been required, it would be difficult to divine. It seems to have been the first addition made to those primitive implements, the cord and bucket; and when once adopted, it naturally led, as we shall find in the sequel, to the most valuable machine which the an

cients employed. By it the friction of the rope in rubbing against the curb, and the consequent loss of a portion of the power expended in raising the water, were avoided, and by it also a beneficial change in the direction of the power, was attained: instead of being exerted in an ascending direction, as in Nos. 8 and 9, it is applied more conveniently and efficiently in a descending one, as in the figure.

Notwithstanding the obvious advantages of using the pulley, it would appear that it was not extensively used in the public wells of the ancients, except in those from which the water was raised by oxen. No example of its use has occurred in the No. 11. Pulley and Bucket. wells of Herculaneum or Pompeii. Nor does it appear to have been employed to any great extent by the Greeks; for with them, a vessel by which to draw water, was as necessary a utensil to their mendicants, as to the modern pilgrims and fakirs of Asia. The poorest of beggars, Aristophanes' Telepheus, had a staff, a broken cup, and a bucket, although it leaked. This custom therefore of carrying a vessel, and cord to draw water, shows that no permanent one was attached to their public wells, which would have been

60

Pulley and Bucket.

[Book I.

the case had the pulley been used. If such had been the custom, neither the mendicant Telepheus, nor Diogenes the philosopher, would have carried about with them, vessels for the purpose.

a

It is not easy to account for the partial rejection of the pulley by the Greeks in raising water, when its introduction would have materially diminished human labor. It certainly did not arise from ignorance of its advantages, as their constant application of it to other purposes, attests; and there is reason to believe, they adopted it to some extent in raising water from the holds of their ships, in common with the maritime people of Asia. It was indeed used in some of their wells, but only to a limited extent. The principal reason for not employing it in public wells, was probably this-With it, a single person only could draw water at a time, while without it, numbers could lower and raise their vessels simultaneously, without interfering with each other In the former case, altercations would be frequent and unavoidable; and the inconvenience of numbers of people waiting for water in warm climates a serious evil. The rich, and those who had servants would always procure it, while the poor and such as had no leisure, would obtain it with difficulty. The large diameter of their wells and those of other nations, it would seem, was solely designed to accommodate several people at the same time. These reasons it is admitted, do not apply to the private wells and cisterns of the Greeks and Romans, in which the pulley might have been used; but those people followed the practice of older nations, and from the great number of their slaves, (who drew the water) they had no inducement or disposition to lessen their labor.

A bucket suspended over a pulley, is still extensively used in raising water from wells throughout the world. The Arabians use it at the well Zemzem; the mouth of which, is "surrounded by a brim of fine white marble five feet high, and ten feet in diameter; upon this the persons stand, who draw water in leathern buckets, attached to pulleys, an iron railing being so placed as to prevent their falling in."

Apparatus precisely similar to the figure in No. 11, are used by the Japanese and other Asiatics. Montanus' Japan. 294.

The pulley has but recently given place to pumps, in workshops and dwellings, and in these only to a limited extent-being confined chiefly to a few cities in the United States and Europe. In France and England, it was a common appendage to wells in the interior of houses, during the last century; and in such cases it is still extensively used throughout Spain, Portugal and other parts of Europe. It is very common in this country, and also in South America.

But the grand advantage of the pulley in the early ages was this;-by it the vertical direction in which men exerted their strength, could be directly changed into a horizontal one, by which change, animals could be employed in place of men. The wells of Asia, frequently varying from two to three, and even four hundred feet in depth, obviously required more than one person to raise the contents of an ordinary sized vessel: and where numbers of people depended on such wells, not merely to supply their domestic wants, but for the purposes of irrigation, the substitution of animals in place of men, to raise water, became a matter almost of necessity, and was certainly adopted at a very early period. In employing an ox for this purpose, the simplest way, and one which deviated the least from their accustomed method, was merely to attach the end of the rope to the yoke, after passing it over a pulley fixed sufficiently b Crichton's Arabia. ii, 219.

a Lardner's Arts, &c i, 138.

Chap. 9]

Application of Animals to Raise Water.

61

high above the mouth of the well, and then driving the animal in a direct line from it, and to a distance equal to its depth, when the bucket charged with the liquid would be raised from the bottom. This, the most direct and efficient, was, (it is believed,) the identical mode adopted, and like other devices of the ancients, it is still continued by their descendants in Africa and Asia. Its value in the estimation of the moderns, may be learned from the fact, that it is adopted in this and other cities for raising coals, &c. from the holds of ships; for which and similar purposes, it has been in use for ages in Europe. It has also been used to work pumps, the further end of the rope being attached to a heavy piston working in a very long chamber or cylinder.

No. 12. Ancient and Modern method of raising water in Asia.

This was probably one of the first operations, and certainly one of the most obvious, where human labor was superseded by that of animals, and in accomplishing it, the pulley itself was perhaps discovered. This mode is common in Egypt, Arabia, India-through all Hindostan, and various other parts of the east. Mr. Elphinstone mentions a large well under the walls of the fort at Bikaneer, from fifteen to twenty-two feet in diameter, and three hundred feet deep. In this well four large buckets are used, each thus drawn up by a pair of oxen, and all worked at the same time. When any one of them was let down, "its striking the water, made a noise like a great gun." But simple as this mode of raising water by animals is, it is capable of an improvement equally simple, though not perhaps obvious to general readers. It was not however left to modern mechanicians to discover, but is one among hundreds of ancient devices, whose origin is lost in the remoteness of time. It is this-Instead of the animal receding from the well on level ground, it is made to descend an inclined plane, so that the weight of its body contributes towards raising the load. This is characteristic of Asiatic devices. At a very early period, the principle of combining the weight of men and animals with their muscular energy, in propelling machines, was adopted. We shall meet with other examples of it.

The addition of another bucket, so as to have one at each end of the rope, was the next step in the progress of improvement; and although so simple a device may appear too obvious to have remained long unperceived, and one which required no stretch of intellect to accomplish, it was one of no small importance, since it effected what is seldom witnessed in practical mechanics-a saving both of time and labor. Thus, by it, the empty vessel descended and became filled, as the other was elevated,

62

Pulley and Two Buckets.

[Book I. (without the expenditure of any additional time and labor to lower it, as with the single bucket,) while its weight in descending, contributed towards raising the charged one.

These advantages were not the only results of the simple addition of another bucket; though they were probably all that were anticipated by the author at the time. It really imparted a new feature to the apparatus, and one which naturally led to the development of that great machine, in which terminated all the improvements of the older mechanics on the primitive cord and bucket-and to which, modern ingenuity has addednothing-viz: THE ENDLESS CHAIN OF POTS-indeed nothing more was then wanting, but to unite the two ends of the rope together, and attach a number of vessels to it, at equal distances from each other, through the whole of its length, and the machine just named was all but complete.

The Anglo Saxons used two buckets hooped with iron, one at each end of a chain which passed over a pulley. And in the old Norman castles, water was raised by the same means. In one of the keeps or towers, still remaining, which was built by Gundulph, bishop of Rochester, in the reigns of the Conqueror and William Rufus, the mode of elevating the water is obvious. "For water, there was a well in the very middle of the partition wall: it was also made to go through the whole wall, from the bottom of the tower up to the very leads, (i. e. the roof) and on every floor were small arches in the wall, forming a communication between the pipe of the wall, and the several apartments, so that by a pulley, water was communicated every where." And in Newcastle, a similar tower exhibits the same device for obtaining the water: "a remarkable pillar from which arches branched out very beautifully on each side, inclosed a pipe, (that is, the continuation of the well,) which conducted water from the well." It appears to have been, in the middle ages, the uniform practice to enclose wells within the walls of towers, that in case of sieges, the water might not be cut off. It was the same in early Rome: the capitol was supplied by a deep well at the foot of the Tarpeian Rock, into which buckets were lowered through an artificial groove made in the rock.c The double bucket is still used in inns in Spain. See a figure in Sat. Mag. Vol. vii, 58.

or passage

A simple mode is practised in Italy, by which a person in the upper story of a house, and at some distance from the well or cistern, (which is generally in the court yard,) raises water without being obliged to descend.

One end of a strong iron rod or wire, is fixed to the house above the window of an upper landing or passage, and the other end in the ground,

a Encyc. Antiq. 524.

b Ibid, 82. eGell's Topography of Rome, ii, 203.