Persian Wheel.
115
Chap. 14.]
on those which form the cone round the vertical one at any part, from itsapex to its base.
Two prominent defects have been pointed out in the noria. First, partof the water escapes after being raised nearly to the required elevation.Second, a large portion is raised higher than the reservoir placed to re-ceive it, into which it is discharged after the vessels begin to descend.(See No. 49, in which they are very conspieuous.) Consequently, partof the power expended in mevmg this wheel, produces no useful effect.These imperfections, however, did not escape the notice of ancient me-chanicians, for to obviate them, the Persian wheel was devised, and sonamed from its having been invented or extensively used in that country.
The vessels in which the water israised, instead of being fastened to therim, or forming part of it, as in thepreceding figures, are suspended frompins, on which they turn, and therebyretain a vertical- position through theirentire ascent; and when at the top areinverted by their lower part coming incontact with a pin or roller attached tothe edge of the gutter or reservoir, asrepresented in the figure. By this ar-rangement no water escapes in rising,nor is it elevated any higher than theedge of the reservoir; hence the defectsin the noria are avoided. Persian wheelsNo. 51 . Persian Wheel. it is believed, have been used in Eu-
rope ever since the Romans ruledover it, if not before. The greatest work in France according to ArthurYoung, for the artificial irrigation of land, was a series of them in Lan guedoc , which raised the water thirty feet. In a Dutch translation ofVirgil’s Georgics in 1682, they are represented with huge buckets likebarreis, suspended from both sides of the rim. They are common inSwitzerland and the-Tyrol. Travels inPolandby D’Ulanski, page 241.They were extensively used in England one hundred and fifty years ago.See Dict. Rusticum. Lon. 1704. We are not aware of their being muchemployed, if at all, in the United States .
They are common in various parts of Asia . “ The water wheels stillused in Syria, ” says Mr. Barrow, “differ only from those of China , byhaving loose buckets suspended at the circumference, instead of fixedtubes.” a Dr. Rüssel, in his ‘Natural History of Aleppo,’ (p. 20,) says theinhabitants make use of large quantities of water, “ which they raise withthe Persian wheel,” from the river. Perhaps the most interesting speci-mens of these machines extant, are to be found in another and very ancientCity of Syria; in Hamath on the Orontes , so named after its founder, oneofthe sons of Canaan . “Two days journey below Homs , (says Volney)is Hamath , celebrated in Syria for its water Works. The wheels arethe largest in the country, being thirty-two feet in diameter.” The city isbuilt on both sides of the river, and is supplied with water from it bymeans of them, the buckets of which empty themselves into stone aque-ducts, supported on lofty arches on a level with the ground on which thecity Stands. They are propelled by the current. Burckhardt observed abouta dozen of them, the largest he says, “is called Naoura el Mahommeyde,