BOTTLE (Fr. bouteille, from a diminutive of the

See also:

• LAT

Lat. butta, a

See also:

• FLASK

flask; cf. Eng. "

See also:

• BUTT
• BUTT, ISAAC (1813-1879)

butt ")  , a vessel for containing liquids, generally as opposed to one for drinking from (though this probably is not excluded), and with a narrow neck to facilitate closing and pouring . The first bottles were probably made of the skins of animals . In the Iliad (iii . 247) the attendants are represented as bearing wine for use in a bottle made of goat's skin . The ancient Egyptians used skins for this purpose, and from the language employed by Herodotus (ii . 121), it appears that a bottle was formed by sewing up the skin and leaving the projection of the leg and foot to serve as a vent, which was hence termed Irobewv . The aperture was closed with a plug or a string . Skin bottles of various forms occur on Egyptian monuments . The Greeks and Romans also were accustomed to use bottles made of skins; and in the southern parts Europe they are still used for the transport of wine . The first of explicit reference to bottles of skin in Scripture occurs in Joshua (ix . 4), where it is said that the Gibeonites took " old sacks upon their asses, and wine-bottles old and rent and bound up." The objection to putting " new wine into old bottles " (Matt. ix . 17) is that the skin, already stretched and weakened by use, is liable to burst under the pressure of the gas from new wine .

Skins are still most extensively used throughout western

Asia for the conveyance and storage of water . It is an error to represent the bottles of the ancient Hebrews as being made exclusively of skins . In Jer. xix . 1 the prophet speaks of " a potter's earthen vessel." The Egyptians (see EGYPT: Art and Archaeology) possessed vases and bottles of hard stone, alabaster, glass, ivory, bone, porcelain, bronze, silver and gold, and also of glazed pottery or common earthenware . In modern times bottles are usually made of glass (q.v.), or occasionally of earthenware . The glass bottle industry has attained enormous dimensions, whether for wine, beer, &c., or mineral waters; and labour-saving machinery for filling the bottles has been introduced, as well as for corking or stoppering, for labelling and for washing them . BOTTLE-BRUSH PLANTS, a genus of Australian plants, known botanically as Callistemon, and belonging to the myrtle family (Myrtaceae) . They take their name from the resemblance of the head of flowers to a bottle-brush . They are well known in cultivation as greenhouse shrubs; the flower owes its beauty to the numerous long thread-like stamens which far exceed the small petals . Callistemon salignus is a valuable hard wood .