Pulley and Single Buchet.

59

Chap. 9.]

to avoid falling into the hands ,of Octavius, took refuge in a very hightower, accessible only from above. Into this, she and her two maids,drew up Antony, (who had given himself a fatal wound,) by means ofropes and pullies, which happened to be there, for the purpose of raisingstones to the top of the building. But the pulley was an essential re-quisite in the sailing vessels of Egypt , India and China , in the remotestages. Neither trading ships, nor the war fleets of Sesostris, or previouswarriors, could have traversed the Indian ocean without this appendage toraise and lower the sails, or quickly to regulate their movements by hal-liards. The ancient Egyptians, says Mr. Wilkinson, “ were not ignorantof the pulley.” The remains of one have actually been disinterred, andare now preserved in the museum of Leyden. The sides are of athulor tamarisk wood, the roller of fir: part of the rope made of leef or fibresof 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 isuncertain.

There are reasons which render it probable that the single pulley, wasdevised to raise water and earth from Wells , and probability is all that canever be attained with regard to its origin. But may not the pulley havebeen known before wells I We think not, and for the following reasons:1. Most barbarous people have been found in possession of some of thelatter, but not of the former; and in the infancy of the arts, man has inall 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 knownworks of man in early times, in which the pulley could have been re-quired or applied. 3. The importance of water in those parts of Asia where the former generations of men dwelt, must have urged them at anearly period to facilitate by the pulley, the labor of raising it. That itpreeeded 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 pul-ley could have previously been required, it would be difficult to divine.It seems to have been the first addition made to those primitive imple-ments, the cord and bücket; and when once adopted, it naturally led, aswe shall find in the sequel, to the most valuable machine which the an-cients employed. By it the friction of the ropein rubbing against the curb, and the consequentloss of a portion of the power expended in raisingthe water, were avoided, and by it also a beneficialchange 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 convenientlyand efficiently in a descending one, as in the figure.

Notwithstanding the obvious advantages of usingthe pulley, it would appear that it was not exten-sively used in the public wells of the aneients, ex-cept in those from which the water was raised by• oxen. No example of its use has occurred in theNo. li. Pulley and Bücket , wells of Herculaneum or Pompeii . Nor does itappear to have been employed to any great extentby the G-reeks; for with them, a vessel by which to draw water, was asnecessary a Utensil to their mendicants, as to the modern pilgrims and fa-kirs of Asia . The poorest of beggars, Aristophanes ’ Telepheus, had aStaff, a broken cup, and a bücket, although it leaked. This custom there-fore of carrying a vessel, and cord to draw water, shows that no per-manent one was attached to their public wells, which would have been