270
Air Chamber.
[Book III.
spherical vessels containing water, into which perpendicular dischargingtubes descend : to expel the liquid, syringes or minute pumps are adaptedto tbe vessels, for die prarpose of injecting air or water, and by that meansto produce jets d’ean. The common syringe is also figured at large and insection, p. 120. a Pliny also seems to refer to air-vessels in his xix book, cap.4, where he speaks of water forced up “ by pumps and such like, goingwith the strength of wind enclosed.” Holland’s Trans.
As the ancients have not particularized the Claims of Ctesibius to thepump, it is impossible to define them with precision at this distance of time.Perhaps the instrument had been laid aside, or the knowledge of it almostlost when he revived and improved it, as some of his own inventions havebeen in modern times—his gun, for example, of which Philo of Byzan-tium has given a description, and which “ was constructed in such a man-ner as to carry stones with great rapidity to the greatest distance.” 1 ’ Itsinvention has been claimed by the Germans , the French , Dutch , and fromthe following remark of Blainville, by the Swiss also: speaking of Basil ,he observes, “ They make a great noise here about a hellish invention ofa gunsmith, who invented wind guns and pistols. This invention may betruly called diabolical, and the use of it ought to be forbid on pain ofdeath.” c Now if the modern inventor of the air gun, an instrument which,two centuries ago, was spoken of as “ a late invention, ” d cannot with cer-tainty be ascertained, it can hardly be expected that the specific Claims ofCtesibius to the pump can be pointed out after a lapse of 2000 years. If hewas the first to combine two or more cylinders to one discharging pipe—to form them of metal, as well as the valves and pistons—and the first toinvent and apply air-vessels, his Claims are great indeed, and for aughtthat is known to the contrary he is entitled to them all. His merits asrespects the latter will be apparent, if we call to mind the fact that theirapplication to pumps has not been known in Europe for two centuries;and that their introduction was in all probability derived from him, for itwas not tili a hundred years after Vitruvius ’s description of his machinehad been translated, printed and circulated, that we first hear of air-vesselsin modern times.
We may here remark that at whatever period tobacco was first smokedin the Jfookah, (and according to some authors, this weed was used inAsia before the discovery of America,) the air-vessel was known; for thatinstrument is a perfect one, as any person may prove by the followingexperiment: let a smoker, instead of sucking at the end of the tube whichhe inserts in his mouth, blow through it, and the liquid Contents of thehookah will be forced out through the perpendicular tube on which theweed is placed as in a miniature fire-engine, carrying up with it the pelletof tobacco, somewhat in the manner of those light-balls which are some-times placed on jets d'eaw, or the boy’s pea playing on a pipe stem. AnOperation, in the opinion of some physicians, more benefcial to the per-former than the ordinary one, and disposing of the scented material in amanner more suited to its value.