Toilet
The modern water closet or toilet utilises a cistern to reserve and hold the correct amount of water required to flush the toilet bowl. In earlier toilets, the cistern was located high above the toilet bowl and connected to it by a long pipe. It was necessary to pull a hanging chain connected to a release valve located inside the cistern in order to flush the toilet. Modern toilets may be close coupled, with the cistern mounted directly on the toilet bowl and no intermediate pipe. In this arrangement, the flush mechanism (lever or push button) is usually mounted on the cistern. Concealed cistern toilets, where the cistern is built into the wall behind the toilet, are also available. A flushing trough is a type of cistern used to serve more than one WC pan at one time. These cisterns are becoming less common however. The cistern was the genesis of the modern bidet.
Read more about this topic: Cistern
Famous quotes containing the word toilet:
“Any walk through a park that runs between a double line of mangy trees and passes brazenly by the ladies’ toilet is invariably known as “Lover’s Lane.””
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“When a daughter tries suicide
and the chimney falls down like a drunk
and the dog chews her tail off
and the kitchen blows up its shiny kettle
and the vacuum cleaner swallows its bag
and the toilet washes itself in tears ...”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Surely it is one of the requisites of a tasteful garb that the expression of effort to please shall be wanting in it; that the mysteries of the toilet shall not be suggested by it; that the steps to its completion shall be knocked away like the sculptor’s ladder from the statue, and the mental force expended upon it be swept away out of sight like the chips on the studio floor.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)