Читать книгу Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks онлайн

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The curious and ingenious wooden lock of ancient Egypt is still in use in Egypt and Turkey. In Eton’s Survey of the Turkish Empire, published towards the close of the last century, the locks then and there in use are thus described: “Nothing can be more clumsy than the door-locks in Turkey; but their mechanism to prevent picking is admirable. It is a curious thing to see wooden locks upon iron doors, particularly in Asia, and on their caravanserais and other great buildings, as well as upon house-doors. The key goes into the back part of the bolt, and is composed of a square stick with five or six iron or wooden pins, about half an inch long, towards the end of it, placed at irregular distances, and answering to holes in the upper part of the bolt, which is pierced with a square hole to receive the key. The key being put in as far as it will go, is then lifted up; and the pins, entering the corresponding holes, raise other pins which had dropped into these holes from the part of the lock immediately above, and which have heads to prevent them falling lower than is necessary. The bolt, being thus freed from the upper pins, is drawn back by means of the key; the key is then lowered, and may be drawn out of the bolt. To lock it again, the bolt is only pushed in, and the upper pins fall into the holes in the bolt by their own weight.” Mr. Eton, probably seeing how well the tumbler-principle is here understood, says: “This idea might be improved on; but the Turks never think of improving.” The locks on the doors of modern houses in Cairo seem to be of this long-established form, except where iron locks have been imported from Europe.