This type of pump, invented by a certain Vera, about whom we have no information, was first described in 1782. The machine consists of a wooden frame carrying a ring of thick hemp rope mounted on two pulleys, one placed in a wooden box serving as a tank, the other attached to the top of the frame. The axle of the second pulley also carries a smaller pulley operated via a transmission cord by a wheel equipped with a handle. On top of the frame rests a metal container with two holes through which the rope passes. The vessel collects the water raised from the lower tank. When the rope is set in rapid motion by the handle, it drags up the water, which, when passing over the upper pulley, is sprayed by the centrifugal force onto the spoon and is collected in the container. The rope then drops back through special openings into the tank below. Vera was inspired to build the machine by his observation that the quantity of water conveyed by a wet rope used for raising buckets from a well was proportional to the cord's velocity. Such pumps were fairly common in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They were sometimes equipped with chains or ribbons instead of rope. Provenance: Lorraine collections.