Combination of Gutters and Levers.
91
Chap. 12.]
“One of diese pedals is set up at almost every house in country places.”This primitive implement is also in general use in the agricultural districtsof China . “ The next thing,” says a writer in the Chinese Repository,Vol. iii, 233, “is to divest the grain of the hask; this is done by poundingit in stone mortars ; two of these are placed in the ground together, andhave corresponding pestles of wood or stone attached to long levers. Alaborer by alternately stepping upon each lever pounds the grain, &c.”Paper mills of the Chinese , by which the shreds of bamboo and the fa-rina of rice are reduced to a pulp, are preeisely the same, and worked bymen treading on levers as in the jantu.® And we may add, that the pasteof which Macaroni is made, is kneaded by a similar implement, and whichthe Romans probably received from the east.
Hence it appears that the jantu is merely one of a dass of machinesof similar construction and moved in .the same manner ; and as the pedalof the Hindoos is supposed to be as old as their agriculture, the jantumay certainly be considered equally ancient, for it is the more importantmachine of the two. They both, however, appear to have had a com-mon origin; and to have come down together through the long vista ofpast ages, without the slightest alteration. The fact of the jantu beingstill used in India proves its antiquity, for it is well known that the Hin-doos retain the same customs and peculiarities that distinguished their an-cestors thousands of years ago. “Ä country,” says Dr. Robertson, “ wherethe customs, manners, and even dress of the people, are almost as perma-nent and invariable as the face of nature itself.” This attachment to an-cient customs exists with singulär force in regard to every thing con-nected with their agriculture. Like the Chinese and some other people ofthe east, nothing can induce them to deviate from the practice of theirforefathers, either as it regards their implements or modes of cultivation.And when we bear in mind, that the Hindoos were among the earliest ofcivilized people ; that it was their arts and their Science which enlightenedthe people, who, in the early ages dwelt in the valley of the Nile ; wecan readily admit that the jantu was used, in the time of Moses, andthat to it he alluded in the passage already quoted ; but, be this as it may,it may safely be considered as a fair specimen of primeval ingenuity inapplying human effort, as well as in raising water ; and in both respects isentitled to the lengthened notice we have given it.
These machines when worked by the feet raise water only about threefeet, but where the elevation is greater, they have been moved by thehands, by means of ropes and a double lever, as in the next figure ; the openends being attached by pins to the edge of the reservoir. In this mannerwater may be raised five or six feet at a single lift, according to the lengthof the gutter.
Contrivances of the kind were formerly used in Europe ; and, as in theeastern world, series of them were sometimes employed to raise wa-ter to great elevations, to the top of buildings, &c. They are figuredand described in S.erviere’s Collection. A number of cisterns are placed atequal distances above each other from the ground to the roof. In these,gutters are arranged as in the figure ; the lowermost raises water into thefirst, into which others dip and convey it to the next one, and so to thehighest. In some, the gutters are worked by a c.pmbination of levers ; inothers, by ropes passing over pulleys at the highest part of the building andUnited to a crank that is attached to a water wheel or other first mover.