It was an ingenious machine for pumping water. It consisted of a cylindrical leather bellows with a wooden ringed frame. At the base it had a heavy lead disc with leather nonreturn valves and at the top a wooden lid with the incorporated outflow pipe. It functioned with the reciprocating movement of an articulated hand lever
that was connected to the outflow pipe of the bellows. The bellows was placed inside a well whose bottom was covered with stones or timbers so that the water of the well entered the valves of the lead disc.