in hydraulics, a reservoir of water, used for various purposes: thus we say, The basin of a jet d'eau, the basin of a fountain, and likewise the basin of a port or harbour.

Jewish antiquities, the layer of the tabernacle, made of the bras looking-glasses belonging to those devout women that watched and stood sentinels at the door of the tabernacle.

Dish, among glass-grinders. These artificers use various kinds of basins, of copper, iron, &c. and of various forms, some deeper, others shallower, according to the focus of the glasses that are to be ground. In these basins it is that convex glasses are formed, as concave ones are formed on spheres or bowls.

Glasses are worked in basins two ways.—In the first, the basin is fitted to the arbor or tree of a lathe, and the glass (fixed with cement to a handle of wood) presented and held fast in the right hand within the basin, while the proper motion is given by the foot of the basin. In the other, the basin is fixed to a stand or block, and the glass with its wooden handle moved. The moveable basins are very small, seldom exceeding five or six inches in diameter; the others are larger, sometimes above ten feet diameter. After the glass has been ground in the basin, it is brought smoother with grease and emery; and polished first with tripoli, and finished with paper cemented to the bottom of the basin.

Bason, among hatters, is a large round shell or case, ordinarily of iron, placed over a furnace; wherein the matter of the hat is moulded into form. The hatters have also basins for the brims of hats, usually of lead, having an aperture in the middle, of a diameter sufficient for the largest block to go through.