Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1876-03-29
who Invented the BarreI-

Few inventions have had " ider
more varied usefulness than the bar
rel; few give such promise of per-
petuity. Unique in principle, simple
yet singularly perfect in plan and struc-
ture the barrel is little less than stroke
of genius. Who set up the first one? ?
Who first conceived the happy thought
of making a vessel tight and strong out
of strips of wood bound together with
hoops? And when did he live:
No history of inventions, none of the
encyclopedias in our great libraries, no
historian of human progress, so far as
we know, gives any information on the
subject, unless we except the Roman
author Pliny, who mistakenly attri-
butes the invention to the Gauls, who
inhabited the banks of the Po. We say
mistakenly, since there is the best of
good reason for believing that the bar
rel was in use long before the Gauls
took possession of their Italian home,
perhaps long before the Gauls existed
as people.
The monuments of Egypt furnish
proof of the early use of hooped vessels,
though no date is given of their inven-
tion. In one of the inscriptions copied
by Wilkinson may be seen two slaves
emptying grain from a wooden vessel
made with hoops, while scribe keeps
tally and a sweeper stands by with a
broom to sweep up the scattered kernels.
Close by an unfortunate is undergoing
punishment by bastinado, for short
measure perhaps, or as Mr.. Wilkinson
suggests, for petty theft. The measure
is barrel-shaped, and precisely like the
kdyl of modern Egypt. 1t would hold
apparently about peck. Unfortunately
the age of this inscription is not indica-
ted, Measures of the sort would seem
to have been in common use very early
in Egypt, though not for the storing of
| liquids, for which skin and earthen
vessels were used.
AT first thought Egypt would be the
last place to look for the invention of
hooped vessels, its arid climate making
| il specially unsuited for their employ
ment. Possibly that may have been
the compelling canse of their invention,
Throughout the East, the bamboo is
largely used for making hollow vessels,
a section of the stem through node Sc
i cuYing solid bottom, and one between
the nodes an open mouth Tor natural
1 tub or bucket. III We'll WOOtfeu ic S5iOhS,
nothing would be more natural than
the employment of hollow tree trunks
for the same purpose or section of tree
stems. followed out by fine or other
wise. In drying, such vessels would
split and spoil, and it would require no
great genius to repair them by means
of withes or wooden bands, the prima-
tive form of the hoop.
If The users of such natural barrels
should migrate TO region where timb-
er was scarcer, enconomy of lumber
would be likely TO suggest the building
of barrels from pieces artificially split,
in short, the use of slaves, by means of
which the primitive cooper would be
able to make several barrels out of a
block that would suffice bnt for a single
dug-out.
But this is speculation merely. 1t is
enough to know for certainty that
the cooper's art, like the potter's, is one
of extreme antiquity. We had no sus-
picion of its yenerableness when we be-
gan TO trace its history in respOnce to
the inquiry-whO made the first barrel