or BASIN, in Hydraulics, a reservoir of water, used for various purposes.

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

Dish, among glass-grinders. These artificers use basons of different materials, as 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 basons it is that convex glasses are formed, as concave ones are formed on spheres or bowls. Glasses are worked in basons two ways. In the first, the bason is fitted to the arbor or tree of a lathe, and the glass, fixed with cement to a handle of wood, is presented and held fast in the right hand within the bason, while the proper motion is given by the foot to the bason. In the other, the bason is fixed to a stand or block, and the glass with its wooden handle is moved. The movable basons are very small, seldom exceeding five or six inches in diameter; but the others are larger, sometimes exceeding ten feet diameter. After the glass has been ground in the bason, it is smoothed with grease and emery, then polished with tripoli, and lastly, finished with paper cemented to the bottom of the bason.

Bason, among hatters, a large round shell or case, ordinarily of iron, in which the matter of the hat is moulded into form over a furnace. The hatters have also basons 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.