-V 
BOT 
paws serving for the moutli of the vessel. 
Cahnet. 
Bottles of this hind are mentioned in 
scripture, and they were used for cairying 
water through the deserts of Arabia and 
other countries, where springs and streams 
are scarce. Such bottles, indeed, have been 
in common use both in ancient and modern 
times. The word used by Job (ch. xxxii. 
19) signifies, in the original, to swell or 
distend ; it is properly used to express a 
skin bottle, which would be made to swell 
by the liquor poured into it, and which 
would be more distended and enlarged, 
till they would at last burst, if they had no 
vent, by the fermentation of the liquor as it 
advanced towards ripeness. Hence we 
perceive the propriety of putting new wine 
into new bottles, &c. according to the ap- 
propriate allusion in the gospels, which 
being moist and strong, would resist the 
expansion, and preserve the wine to due 
maturity ; whereas old bottles of this kind, 
being dry and more brittle, would be in 
danger of bursting, and were best adapted 
to receive old wine, the fermentation of 
Which had ceased. 
These leather bottles are supposed, by a 
sacred historian, not only to be frequently 
rent, when grown old and much used, but 
also to be capable of being repaired (Josh, 
ix. 4.) Modern travellers, as well as an- 
cient authors, frequently take notice of 
these leathern bottles. The Arabs, says Sir 
John Chardin, and all those who lead a wan- 
dering life, keep their water, milk, and other 
liquors, in these bottles, the manner of re- 
pairing which he also describes. They serve, 
according to this writer, to preserve their 
contents more fresh than in any other way. 
They are made, he says, of goat-skins : when 
the animal is killed, they cut off its feet 
and its head, and in this manner they draw 
it out of the skin without opening the 
belly. They afterwards sew up the places 
where the legs were cut off, and the tail, 
and when it is filled, they tie it about the 
neck. These nations, and the country peo- 
ple of Persia, never go a journey without 
a small leathern bottle of water hanging by 
their side like a scrip. The great leathern 
bottles are made of the skin of an he-goat, 
and the small ones, that serve instead of a 
bottle of water on the road, are made of a 
kid’s skin. In speaking of the Persians, 
the same traveller says, that they use lea- 
thern bottles, and find them useful in keep- 
ing water fresh, especially if people, when 
they travel, take care to moisten them, 
wherever they find water. The evapora- 
/, BOT 
tion thus furnished, serves also to keep the 
water cool. He says, that the disagreea- 
ble taste of the leather is taken off, by 
causing it to imbibe rose-water when it is 
new, and before it is applied to use. 
Formerly, it is said, the Persians per- 
fumed these leathern vessels with mastic, or 
with incense. From him also we learn, 
that they put into these goat-skin and kid- 
skin vessels every thing which they want 
to carry to a distance in the East, whether 
dry or liquid ; they are thus preserved 
fresher than if they were conveyed in boxes 
or pots: the ants and other insects are 
prevented from getting among them, and 
they are thus kept free from dust ; and for 
these reasons butter, honey, cheese, and 
other such aliments, are inclosed in vessels 
made of the skins of these, animals. Ac- 
cordingly the things, particularly the balm 
and honey, which were somewhat liquid 
that were carried to Joseph as a present, 
were probably inclosed in little vessels 
made of kid-skins. Homer also refers to 
this inode of preserving various kinds of 
provision in leathern vessels. Glass bottles 
are better for cider than those of stone. 
Foul glass bottles are cured by rolling 
sand or small shot in them ; musty bottles 
by boiling them. Bottles are chiefly made 
of thick coarse glass; though there are 
likewise bottles of boiled leather made and 
sold by the case-makers. Fine glass bot- 
tles, covered with straw or wicket, are 
called flasks. The quality of the glass has 
been sometimes found to affect the liquor 
in the bottle. 
BOTTOM, in navigation, is used to de- 
note as well the channel of rivers and har- 
bours, as the body or hull of a ship : thus, 
in the former sense, we say, a gravelly bot- 
tom, clayey bottom, sandy-bottom, &c. and 
in the latter sense, a British bottom, a 
Dutch bottom, &c. 
By statute, certain commodities imported 
in foreign bottoms, pay a duty called petty 
customs, over and above what they are 
liable to, if imported in British bottoms. 
BOTTOMRY, in commerce, a marine 
contract for the borrowing of money upon 
the keel or bottom of a ship ; that is to say, 
when the master of a ship hinds the ship 
itself, that if the money be not paid by the 
time appointed, the creditor shall have the 
said ship. 
Bottomry is also where a person lends 
money to a merchant, who wants it in traffic, 
and the lender is to be paid a greater sum at 
the return of the ship, standing to the hazard 
