Chap. 9.]

Bronze Cocks of great Antiquity,

557

while their own weight serves to close them ; but in ordinary cocks, theplugs must be turned by some external force. Cocks of wood, brass, andother metals, and made on the principle of those now in use are extremelyancient. There is reason to believe that ancient modifications both of valveand plug cocks were quite as numerous as modern ones. It is certainthat the Greeks, Romans (and most probably the Babylonians and Egyp-tians also) had far richer specimens of these instruments, both as regardsthe material and workmanship than any thing of the kind in modern days.

Horus Apollo, or Horapolio, an Egyptian of the fourth Century, wrotea work “ Concerning the Hieroglyphics of the Egyptians,” and he informsus that the priests gave the form of a lion to “the mouths and stops [cocks]of consecrated fountains,” because the inundation of the Nile occurredwhen the sun was in Leo.—(Encyc . Anti, i, 185, note.)

The contents of those enormous metallic vases mentioned in both sacredand profane history, were undoubtedly discharged through cocks, althoughthese are not always indicated : as the laver of brass made by Bezaleel out of the mirrors of the Israelitish women : the brazen sea also, whichwas cast by a Tyrian brass-founder for Solomon. This unrivaled vasewas, according to Josephus , of an hemispherical form. It was sixteenfeet in diameter and between eight and nine in depth ; “ an hand-breadth”in thickness, and contained about 15,000 gallons. The brim was wroughtlike the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies ; “ and under the brim of itround about, there were knops cast in two rows when it was cast.” Itwas supported on a pedestal which rested on twelve brazen statues ofoxen, from whose mouth the liquid is supposed to have been drawn.This splendid vessel was removed from off the statues by Ahaz —“ hetook down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put itupon a pavement of stones.” It was subsequently carried to Babylon byNebuchadnezzar .

When Sylla pillaged the temple of Delphi, he found a vase of silver solarge and heavy that no ordinary carriage could Support it. He thereforehad it Cut up. (Plutarch in Sylla.) Herodotus , i, 51, in enumerating thegifts of Croesus to the same temple, mentions a cistern of gold, and oneof silver of immense dimensions, (perhaps the same taken by Sylla,) alsosilver casks and basins—that these had cocks is certain, for he observesthat a statue of a boy was attached to one of them, and the water wasdischarged through one of Ins hands. This shows how variegated were thefigures and orifices of ancient cocks. The Japanese indulge a similar taste,and have doubtless inherited it from their remote progenitors. Someof their bronze idols are made to serve as fmmtains, and the water issuesfrom the fingers of some, while others hold a vase from which it flows, asin the Greek and Roman designs of Oceanus and Neptune. The Dutch on first visiting the Japanese found the baths of these people snppliedwith cold and warm water by means of pipes “ and copper cocks.”—(Montanus’ Japan , translated by Ogilby, pp. 94, 279, 449, and Thunberg’sTravels, iii, 102.)

Bronze or brass cocks were as common in old Rome and probably otherancient cities, as they are in any modern one. The immense number ofpipes that conveyed water to the houses, baths, fountains, &c. must havekept a great number of founders constantly at work in making and re-pairing them. We learn from Vitruvius that every main pipe that passedthrough the streets, had a large cock, by which the w r ater was let in orexcluded, and that these cocks were turned as similar ones now are, withan iron key. Several specimens of ancient cocks are extant. Amongthese, a very large one discovered in the ruins of a temple built by