66

Lever Bucket Machine.

[Book I. pressure of the arm C E on the end I. The bucket D when empty, has its mouth upwards, being suspended as above mentioned. The end D with its bucket is also lighter than the end with the bucket E, when both are empty. By reason of the different bore of the spouts, D is filled almost as soon as E, and immediately preponderating, sinks down to D, and thereby raises the contrary end of the lever and its bucket up to the cistern M, into which it discharges its water; but immediately the bucket D becoming full, pours out its water, and the end of the lever E comes down again into its horizontal situation, and striking upon the end I of the loaded lever I K, raises the weight K, by which means the force of its blow is broken. If the distance A B or fall of the water be about six feet, this machine will raise the water into the cistern M twentyfour feet high. Such a machine is very simple and may be made in any proportion according to the fall of the water, the quantity allowed to be wasted, and the height to which the water must be raised."

"Some years ago," Dr. Desaguliers continues, "a gentleman showed me a model of such an engine varying something from this, but so contrived as to stop the running of the water at A A, when the lever D E began to move. He told me he had set up an engine in Ireland, which raised about half a hogshead of water in a minute, forty feet high, and did not cost forty shillings a year to keep it in repair, and that it was not very expensive to set up at first." Experimental Philosophy, vol. i, 78.

There is a singular historical fact connected with the use of buckets to raise water from wells, which will serve to conclude this part of the subject. Every person knows, that war between nations has often arisen from the most trifling causes; when thousands of human beings, alike ignorant and innocent of its origin, hired by its authors, armed with murderous weapons and incessantly exercised in the use of them, are marshaled into the presence of a similar host; when both being stimulated by inflaming addresses, and often excited by ardent spirits, destroy each other like infuriated tigers! Then after one party is overcome, the other glorying in the slaughter, hail their leader a hero, and not infrequently do that, which fiends would shudder to think of-viz. return thanks to the benign Savior of men, for having enabled them thus to de

Chap. 9.]

Buckets.

67

stroy their species; and to produce an amount of misery, as evinced in the shrieks of the wounded-the agonies of the dying-the unutterable pangs of widows, and the untold sufferings of orphans-that would suffice. to draw tears from demons! And all this for what? Why, at one time, according to Tasso, and it is degrading to our nature to repeat it, because some thieves of Modena stole a bucket belonging to a public well of Bologna! This fatal bucket is still preserved in the cathedral of Modena-a memorial of a sanguinary war, and of the evils attending the most horrible of all human delusions, military glory.

"In the year 1005, some soldiers of the commonwealth of Modena ran away with a bucket from a public well, belonging to the State of Bologna. This implement might be worth a shilling; but it produced a bloody quarrel which was worked up into a bloody war. Henry, the king of Sardinia, for the Emperor Henry the second, assisted the Modenese to keep possession of the bucket; and in one of the battles he was made prisoner. His father, the Emperor, offered a chain of gold that would encircle Bologna, which is seven miles in compass, for his son's ransom, but in vain. After twenty-two years imprisonment, and his father being dead, he pined away and died. His monument is still extant in the church of the Dominicans. This fatal bucket is still exhibited in the tower of the cathedral of Modena, enclosed in an iron cage."

MATERIALS OF BUCKETS.-Neptune and Andromache watered horses with metallic ones. Both Greeks and Romans had them of wood, metal and leather. Sometimes wooden ones were hooped with brass. One of these was found in a Roman barrow in England. The ancient British had them without hoops and cut out of solid timber. The Anglo Saxons made them of staves as at present. Those of the old Egyptians were of metal, wood, skins or leather, and probably of earthenware. figures in 11th and 13th chapters. We have given figures of some metallic ones discovered in Pompeii, in Book II. The bucket of Bologna is formed of staves and bound with iron hoops.

See

The old error that 'water has no weight in water,' arose from not perceiving the weight of a bucket, until it was raised out of the liquid in which it was plunged.

Although poetry is foreign to the design of this work, and cold water is not remarkably inspiring, nor a bucket a very poetical object, yet the following beautiful lines of S. Woodworth, on The Bucket,' are as refreshing in the midst of a dry discussion, as a draught of the sparkling liquid to a weary traveller of the desert.b

That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure;

For often at noon, when returned from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing,
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell :
Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing,
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well.

How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips!
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips.

Misson's Travels, iii, 327, and Keysler's Travels, iii, 138.

They have been erroneously attributed to the British Poet Wordsworth.

68

The Windlass.

[Book I.

CHAPTER X.

The Windlass: Its origin unknown-Employed in raising water from wells, and ore from minesChinese windlass-Other inventions of that people, as table forks, winnowing machines, &c. &c. Fusee: Its application to raise water from wells-Its inventor not known. Wheel and pinion-AngloSaxon crane-Drum attached to the windlass roller, and turned by a rope: Used in Birmah, England, &c. Tread wheels: Used by the Ancients-Moved by men and various animals-Jacks-Horizontal tread wheels-Common wheel or capstan. Observations on the introduction of table forks into Europe.

THE WINDLASS.

ALTHOUGH it may never be known to whom the world is indebted for the windlass, there are circumstances which point to the construction of wells and raising of water from them, as among the first uses to which it, as well as the pulley, was applied. The windlass possesses an important advantage over the single pulley in lifting weights, or overcoming any resistance; since the intensity of the force transmitted through it, can be modified, either by varying the length of the crank, or the circumference of the roller on which the rope is coiled. Sometimes a single vessel and rope, but more frequently two, are employed, as in the figure, No. 18.

No. 18. Windlass. From Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus.

The buckets are suspended from opposite sides of the roller, the rope winding round it in different directions, so that, as one ascends, the other descends. Pliny, in his Natural History, xix, 4, mentions this machine as used by the Romans for raising water; and in the 36th book, cap. xv, when speaking of a canal for draining the marsh Fucinus, part of which passed through a mountain, he says the water which flowed in upon the workmen was raised up "with device of engines and windles." As there was not any apparatus attached to the public wells in Greek and Roman cities, or if so, to a very limited extent, it is probable the windlass was chiefly used in the country, where its application to deep wells was perhaps as common as it is in other parts of the world at the present time.

It has always been used in raising ore and water from mines. Agricola has given several figures of it as employed in those of Hungary, where

Some

it has probably been in uninterrupted use since the Roman era.a times it was placed on one side of the well, and at a short distance from it, the ropes passing through pulleys that were suspended over its mouth. By this arrangement water may be raised to any required height above the windlass; an advantage in some cases very desirable. Belidor has given a similar figure, and observes that such machines were extensively used in the Low Countries. Sometimes a series of pulleys were combined with it. In an old work, we have seen the windlass attached to a large tub in which water or coal was raised, so that one or more persons might ascend and descend, without the aid of others on the surface of the ground; the ropes being passed through a block above the mouth of the pit. It is very probable that these applications of it were known to the Greeks and Romans. Switzer, in his 'Hydrostatics,' says, the ancients used the windlass for raising water, and that all their machines of a similar construction were classed under the general name of Budromia.

There is a very peculiar and exceedingly ingenious modification of the windlass, which may here be noticed, and for which we are indebted to the Chinese. It furnishes the means of increasing mechanical energy to almost any extent, and as it is used by them to raise water from some of those prodigiously deep wells already noticed, (p. 30,) a figure of it, (No. 19.) is inserted. The roller consists of two parts of unequal diameters, to the extremities of which, the ends of the rope are fastened on opposite sides, so as to wind round both parts in different directions. As the load to be raised is suspended to a pulley, (See fig.) every turn of the roller raises a portion of the rope equal to the circumference of the thicker part, but at the same time lets down a portion equal to that of the smaller; consequently the weight is raised at each turn, through a space equal only to half the difference between the circumferences of the two parts of the roller. The action of this machine is therefore slow, but the mechanical advantages are proportionably great.d

No. 19. Chinese Windlass.

No. 20. Fusee Windlass.

This is the neatest and most simple modification of the wheel and axle, that human ingenuity has devised, and is a proof that the principles of mechanical science were well understood in remote ages; for every me

a De Re Metallica, Basil. 1657. p. 118, 119, 160.

Architecture Hydraulique, tom. 2, p. 333.

< Besson's Theatre des Instrvmens Mathematiques et Mechaniques. A Lyon, 1579. The Chinese,' by J. F. Davis, vol. ii, 286.

70

The Fusee.

[Book I.

chanician, we think will admit, that mechanical tact and ingenuity, unaided by scientific knowledge, could never have devised it. It exhibits a species of originality so unique, so simple and efficient, that evidently shows it to have been the conception of no common mind. At what time it was first taken to Europe, we have not the means of ascertaining. It has but recently, i. e. comparatively so, been described in books. We are not aware of its having been noticed in any, previous to the last half century. It appears to have been introduced like several other standard machines from the same source, so gradually, that the precise period of its first arrival cannot easily be determined. Considering the long period, during which European nations have maintained an intercourse with the Chinese, the recent introduction of this machine may appear singular; but very little is yet known of that people, although an intimate acquaintance with their arts, would probably enrich us with treasures, more valuable than their teas and their porcelain.

There is a large debt of gratitude due to the Chinese, which has never been sufficiently acknowledged. It is to them, we are indebted for some of the most important discoveries connected with the present state of the arts and sciences. From them was derived the chief of all arts, PRINTING, and even movable types, and that invaluable acquisition, the mariner's compass; peculiar stoves, chain-bridges, spectacles, silver forks, India ink, chain-pump, winnowing machine,d besides many others; and to correct a popular error, which attributes to our fellow citizens of Connecticut, the invention of wooden hams,' it may as well be remarked, that these are also of Chinese origin. Le Comte, says they are so adroitly constructed, that numerous buyers are constantly deceived; and frequently it is not till one is boiled and ready to be eaten, that it is dicovered to be "nothing but a large piece of wood under a hog's skin." But if China has produced specimens of dishonest ingenuity, she has, in the tread-mill, furnished one of the greatest terrors to evil doers.

A large Fusee is sometimes used in place of the cylindrical roller of a windlass, especially in wells of great depth. When a bucket is at the bottom, and the weight of a long rope or cham has to be overcome in addition to that of the water, it is accomplished more easily by winding up

a "These stoves are extremely convenient, and deserve to be made known universally in our country. Some of our company took such stoves with them to Gottenburgh, as models for those who might want to know their construction." Osbeck's Voyage to China, vol. i, 322.

b. The use of silver forks with us, by some of our spruce gallants taken up of late, came from China to Italy, and from thence to England." Heylin's Cosmography, Lon. 1670. p. 865.

The secret of making it, was brought by a Dutch supercargo to Göttingen in 1756, and there divulged. Lon. Mag. for 1756. p. 403.

This was also brought first to Holland in the beginning of the 18th century, whence it soon spread over Europe. It was carried to Scotland in 1710. Walter Scott, has incorporated in one of his novels, an historical fact relating to the superstition of his countrymen respecting it. When first introduced, the religious feelings of some were greatly shocked at an invention, by which artificial whirlwinds were produced in calm weather, when, as they supposed, it was the will of God for the air to remain still. As they considered it a moral duty to wait patiently for a natural wind, to separate the chaff from their wheat, they looked upon the use of this machine, as rebellion against heaven, and an attempt to take the government of the world out of the Creator's hands! Constant readers of the Bible, the more superstitious of the Covenanters imagined it was a cunning device of the Wicked One, the Prince of the power of the Air,' and therefore one of those works, which Christians are called to guard against and renounce! It was introduced into America in 1761, as a "Dutch machine for winnowing grain." The first one, was made in Massachusetts, "by the directions of a gentleman in the Jersies," during the same year. Lon. Mag. for 1761. p. 273. Davis' Chinese. vol. ii, 361.