Hindoo Chain of Pots.

125

Chap. 15.]

will be seen that the tubes are placed at the upper comer, and consequent-ly retain the water tili the vessels ascend the drum, when it is dischargedas represented. Provision should be made for the escape of air fromthese vessels, as they enter the water, and also for its admission on thedischarge of the liquid above. The wheel or drum which carries thechain is, in this figure, solid, and cut .into a hexagonal form to prevent itfrom slipping.

There is also in old authors a great diversity in the construction of thechains, and also in their number. Some understand by the term ‘ doublechain,’ merely a simple one doubled and its ends United; i. e. one whoselength is equal to double the space through which the water is to be ele-vated by it. Others suppose two separate ones intended and placed par-allel to each other, the vessels being connected to them as in the figure.Others again, and among them Barbaro, figure two sets of chains and potscarried by the same wheel. He has also made them pass under pulleysin the water, a useless device, except when the chains are employed in aninclined position.

The chain of pots is mentioned by most oriental travelers, although de-scribed by few. In Terry’s voyage to India in 1615, speaking of thetanks and wells of the Hindoos, he observes, “ they usually cover thoseWells wifh a building over head, and with oxen draw water out of them,which riseth up in many small buckets, whereof some are always goingdown, others continually coming up and emptying themselves in troughsor little rills, made to receive and convey the water, whitherthey please.”p. 187. To the same machine Fryer refers, when speaking of the differ-ent modes of raising water from deep ivells. It is drawn up, he says, byoxen “ with huge leathern buckets or pots around a wheel.” p. 410.And again at Surat , it is drawn up “in leathern bags upon wheels.” p.104. Had not wells been mentioned in Connection with these extractsfrom Fryer, we might have supposed it was the noria to which he alluded.Tavernier mentions it in the same way as applied to draw water fromWells in Persia . p. 143. When required to raise it from rivers, theywere, as in the case of the Persian wheels on the Orontes , propelled bythe current when it was sufficiently rapid for the purpose. “ As for theEuphrates , (observes Tavernier,) certain it is that the great number ofmills built upon it, to convey water to the neighboring grounds, have notonly rendered it unnavigable, but made it very dangerous.” Lucan inthe 3d book of his Pharsalia alludes to this extensive diversion of the wa-ter for agricultural purposes, in his time.

But soon Euphrates ’ parting waves divide,

Covering, like fruitful Nile, the country wide.

These mills are probably similar to those referred to by Montanus inhis account of Japan , p. 296. The city of Jonda, he observes was de-fended by a strong castle, which was “ continually supplied with freshwater by two mills.” It is a pity they were not described.

The chain of pots was used by all the celebrated nations of antiquityand it still is employed more or less over all Asia and Europe . Previoustothel6th Century, it constituted the ‘water works’ for supplying Europe-an cities, and was often driven by windmills—as it still is in Holland. Itseems to be the ne plus ultra of hydraulic engines among half civilizednations, while those only which are enlightened, have the pump. Eventhe materials of which it was made by different people of old, may beconsidered as emblematical of their national characters. The inhabitants°f Egypt, central and Southern Asia , employed light and fragile materials;