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

Jewish antiquities, the laver of the tabernacle, made of the brafs looking-glasses belonging to those devout women who watched and stood sentinels at the door of the tabernacle.

Dibb, 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 glases that are to be ground. In these basins it is that convex glases are formed, as concave ones are formed on spheres or bowls.

Glases 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 to 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 fix 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 greese 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.