BASKET, a vessel made of twigs, cane, or rushes, as well as of a variety of other materials, interwoven together, and used for holding, protecting or carrying any commodity. The process of interweaving twigs, rushes or leaves, is practised among the rudest nations of the world ; and as it is one of the most universal of arts, it ranks among the most ancient industries. The huts of the earliest settlers in Rome and in western Europe gen erally were made of osier work plastered with clay. Some inter esting remains of British dwellings of this nature found near Lewes in 1877 were described by Major-General H. L. F. Pitt-Rivers in Archaeologia, vol. xlvi. pp. 456-58. Boats of the same material, covered with the skins of animals, attracted the notice of the Romans in Britain; they seem to have been of the ordinary boat shape. The basketwork boats mentioned by Herodotus as being used on the Tigris and Euphrates were round and covered with bitumen. Boats of this shape are still used on these rivers, and boats of analogous construction are employed in crossing the rivers of India, in which the current is not rapid. Nor have methods of making much changed. General Pitt-Rivers, on com paring the remains excavated near Lewes with a modern hamper in his possession, found the method to be identical.