I
Chap. 15.]
Antiquity of the Chain of Pots.
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the causes of their ceasing to act. But that the ‘pumps’ of Danaus weresome kind of bücket machines, like the chain of pots, is inferable fromthe account of his daughters’ punishment. They were condemned to drawwater from deep wells, and would of course, use the machines their fa-ther introduced. Now we are told that the vessels in which they raisedthe liquid leaked so much, that the water escaped from them ere it reach-ed the surfaee—he nee their endless punishment. The witty remark ofBion implies the same thing. A person speaking of the severe punish-ment of these young women, in perpetually drawing water in vessels fullof holes, he remarked, “I should consider them mueh more to be pitiedwere they condemned to draw water in vessels without holes.” Hence,we infer that the Egyptian sakia or chain of pots, was the ‘ pump’ in-troduced by Danaus, and that to it tradition refers. It was the only oneto which, from its construction, and adaptation to every depth, the nameof ‘ pump’ could have been applied—while from its simplicity and effi-eiency, it was a gift of no ordinary value to the Greeks; and the introduc-tion of it into their country was worthy of being preserved from oblivion.
It is believed to have been in uninterrupted use there since the age ofDanaus; although history may not have preserved any record or repre-sentation of so early an employment of it. It is still used on the conti-nent and in the islands, as weil as throughout Syria and Asia Minor . AtSmyrna it is as common as a pump with us. In “ Voyage Pittoresque dela Grece,” Paris, 1782, Plate 49, eontains a drawing, and page 9 adescription of one in a garden at Scio , the ancient Chios , and Capital cityof the island of the same name. It is similar to the one represented inNo. 54, and is doubtless identical with those employed in the same cities,when Homer was born near the former, and when he kept a school inthe latter.
On the antiquity of this and preceding machines, w*e add the opinions ofrecent writers. “ A traveler Standing on the edge of either the Libyan orArabian desert, and overlooking Egypt , would behold before him one ofthe most tnagnificent prospects ever presented to human eyes. He wouldsurvey a deep valley, bright with Vegetation , and teeming with a depres-sed but laborious population engaged in the various labors of agriculture.He would see opposite to him another eternal rampart, which, with theone he Stands upon, shuts in this valley, and between them a mighty river,flowing in a winding course from the foot of one chain to the other, fur-nishing lateral canals, whence the water is elevated by wheels and buck-ets of the rüdest structures, worked sometimes by men and sometimes byeattle, and no dowbt identical with the process in use in the days of Sesos-tns.”* “ These methods” (of raising water to irrigate the land,) “ are notthe invention of the modern Egyptians, but have been used from time im-memorial without receiving the smallest improvement.” h “ Even the creak-mg sound of the water wheels, as the blindfolded oxen went round andround, and of the tiny cascades splashing from the String of earthen pots'Mo the trough which received and distributed the water to the woodeneanals; were not disagreeable to my ears, since they called up before theImagination, the primitive ages of mankind, the rüde contrivances of thelängs of Egypt , for the advancement of agriculture, which have un-wergone little change or improvement up to the present hour.” c
Like every other machine that has yet been named, the date of its ori-