100
[Book I.
buckets one at each end of a chain ^.dapted to a versatile . engine calledvolgolus. Buckets with iron hoops, and drawing water from deep Wells as a punishment.” The swape appears to have been the principal ma-chine in England for raising water tili quite recent times. In the 17thCentury it was used in manufactories, and is not yet, perhaps, wholly su-perseded by the pump. Bishop Wilkins, in speaking of the lever and itsapplication by Archimedes in destroying the Roman fleet, says, “ it was ofthe same form with that which is commonly used by brewers and dyers forthe drawing of water. It consists of two posts, the one fastened perpen-dicularly in the ground, the other being jointed on cross to the top of it.”Mathemat . Magic. B. i, Chaps. 4 and 12. This was published in 1638. In1736, Mr. Ainsworth published his celebrated Latin Dictionary, and lin-der the word Rachdmus, ‘ a truckle or pulley used in drawing up water;’he adds, “ perhaps not unlike the sweep our brewers use hence at thattime, it continued to be used for raising water and transferring liquids inEnglish breweries and similar establishments, as remarked by Wilkins onehundred years before.
In Germany it was frequently,and still is, a prominent object incountry towns and villages, as wellas in farm yards. In the former itwas frequently erected on, or at theend of bridges for the purpose ofraising water from rivers and brooks.In the famous Nuremburgh Chronicleit is frequently figured. From a va-riety of different forms, we haveselected No. 40, as a specimen.
In the Cosmography of SebastianNo ’ 40 'chroS’e. F A° I D. th l493. rembUrSh Munster, 1550, it is represented at
page 729, as employed for raisingwater to supply, by means of pipes, a neighboring town. Agricola, inhis De Re Metallica, has also figured it. pp. 443 and 458.
■wimiWmih
The Swape was very common in France and the neighboring nationson the European continent, in the last and preceding centuries. It isnamed bascule in France . The old Dictkmnaire, de Trevoux, says :
Les bascules les plus simple, sont celles qui ne consistent qu’en unepiece de bois soutenue d’une autre par le milieu ou autrement, commed’un essieu, pour etre plus au moins en equilibre. Lorsqu’on pese sur