ed Amelgard, but it is now practically certain that Basin was
the writer. He also wrote a suggestion for reform in the administration of
justice entitled _Libellus de optimo ordine forenses lites audiendi et
deferendi_; an _Apologia_, written to answer the charges brought against
him by Louis XI; a _Breviloquium_, or allegorical account of his own
misfortunes; a _Peregrinatio_; a defence of Joan of Arc entitled _Opinio et
consilium super processu et condemnatione Johanne, dicte Puelle_, and other
miscellaneous writings. He wrote in French, _Advis de Monseigneur de
Lysieux au roi_ (Paris, 1677).

See the edition of the _Historiae_, by J. E. J. Quicherat (Paris,
1855-1859); also G. du F. de Beaucourt, _Charles VII et Louis XI d'apres
Thomas Basin_ (Paris, 1858).

BASIN, or BASON (the older form _bacin_ is found in many of the Romanic
languages, from the Late Lat. _baccinus_ or _bacchinus_, probably derived
from _bacca_, a bowl), a round vessel for holding liquids. Hence the term
has various technical uses, as of a dock constructed with flood-gates in a
tidal-river, or of a widening in a canal for unloading barges; also, in
physical geography, of the drainage area of a river and its tributaries.

In geology, "basin" is equivalent to a broad shallow syncline, _i.e._ it is
a structure proper to the bed rock of the district covered by the term; it
must not be confused with the physiographic river basin, although it
occasionally happens that the two coincide to some extent. Some of the
better known geological basins in England are, the _London basin_, a
shallow trough or syncline of Tertiary, Cretaceous and Jurassic rocks; the
_Hampshire basin_, of similar formations; and the numerous _coal basins_,
_e.g._ the S. Wales coalfield, the Forest of Dean, N. Staffordshire
coalfield, &c. The _Paris basin_ is made of strata similar to those in the
London and Hampshire basins. Strictly speaking, a structural basin is
formed of rock beds which exhibit a _centroclinal_ dip; an elongated narrow
syncline or trough is not a basin. "Rock-basins" are comparatively small,
steep-sided depressions that have been scooped out of the solid rock in
mountainous regions, mainly through the agency of glaciers (see CIRQUE).
Lakes sometimes occupy basins that have been caused by the removal in
solution of some of the more soluble constituents (rock salt, &c.) in the
underlying strata; occasionally lake basins have been formed directly by
crustal movemen