20

Cauldrons.

[Book 1.

ings of the poor. The kettles of the Chinese says Mr. Bell, (who lodgedone day in a cook’s house near Pekin, ) “ are indeed very thin, and madeof cast iron, being extremely smooth both within and without.” Fuel isscarce and they used bellows to heat them. a These \ve have no reason tosuppose have undergone any change from the remotest times, and theyare in all probability of the same form as the celebrated cauldrons of an-tiquity. That those of the Scythians , the ancient Tartars and Chinese ,were similar to those of the Greeks, is asserted by Herodotus . “AsScythia is barren of wood, they have the following contrivance to dressthe flesh of the victim : having flayed the animal, they Strip the fleshfrom the bones; and if they have them at hand, they throw it into certainpots made in Scythia , and resemblino the lesbian cauldrons, thoughsomewhat larger.” Herod . iv, 61.

The boilers of the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, had the same ge-neral form. See plate 31 of Frezier’s Voyage to the South Sea, in 1712,’13, ’14. As these people had not the use of iron, their vessels were ofearthenware, copper and its alloys, silver, and even of gold. In the templeple at Cusco , “ were boyling pots and other vessels of gold.” Two enor-mous cauldrons were carried by the conquerors to Spain , “ each sufficientwherein to boyle a cow.” (Purchas’ Pilgrimage, 1061, and 1073.) Thenegroes of Africa, made theirs of the same shape. (Generale Histoire,tom. v, Planche 88.) Large cauldrons were common of old; they arefrequently mentioned by Homer, Herodotus , &c. and in the Bible . Maho-met, in the 34th chapter of the Koran, speaks of large cauldrons be-longing to David. Some of those represented at Thebes , appear suf-ficiently capacious to contain the cooks that attend them. Croesus boiledtogether a tortoise and a lamb in a large brasen cauldron, which had acover of the same metal; hence the reply of the Delphic Oracle , to thedemand of his ambassadors to be informed what Croesus was at that mo-ment doing:

E’en now the odors to my sense that rise

A tortoise boiling with a lamb supplies,

Where brass below, and brass above it lies. Herod . i, 47.

The question naturally arises—why such uniformity in the figure ofthisUtensil 1 and what has induced people in distant times and countries tomake it resemble a portion of a hollow sphere or spheroid, instead offorming it with plane sides and bottom % It is clear there was some Con-trolling reason for this—eise why should the fanciful Greek and Romanartists, have permitted it to retain its primitive form, while all other house-hold implements, as lamps, vases, drinking vessels, and tripods, &c. weremoulded by them into endless shapes Brasen cauldrons we know werehighly prized. They were sometimes polished, and their sides richly or-namented, but still their general form was the same as those of more an-cient people. In this respect, both Greeks and Romans left them as theyfound them. The reason is obvious. When a liquid is heated in a cy-lindrical or other vessel having perpendicular sides, it easily ‘ hoils over ■’but when the sides incline inwards at the top, as in these cauldrons ; itcannot well be thrown out by ebullition alone; for the heated waves as they

tunity of seeing a tinker execute what I believe is unknown in Europe. He mendedand soldered frying-pans of cast iron, that were craeked and full of holes, and restoredthem to their primitive state, so that they became as serviceable as ever. He even tookso little pains to effect this, and succeeded so speedily, as to excite my astonishment.”Van Braam’s Journal of the Dutch embassy to China , 1794—6. Lon. 1798. ii, 78, andChinese Repository, Canton, 1838. iv, 38.a Travels from Petersburg!! to diverse parts of Asia . Lon. 1764. i, 312.