A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 1 (of 2)Beckmann, Johann
History
A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 1 (of 2)
Beckmann, Johann
Inventions -- History
To turn the mill to the wind, two methods have been invented. The
whole building is constructed in such a manner as to turn on a post
below, or the roof alone, together with the axle-tree, and the wings
are moveable. Mills of the former kind are called German-mills, those
of the latter Dutch. They are both moved round either by a wheel
and pinion within, or by a long lever without[433]. I am inclined
to believe that the German-mills are older than the Dutch; for
the earliest descriptions which I can remember, speak only of the
former. Cardan[434], in whose time wind-mills were very common both
in France and Italy, makes however no mention of the latter; and the
Dutch themselves affirm, that the mode of building with a moveable
roof was first found out by a Fleming in the middle of the sixteenth
century[435]. Those mills, by which in Holland the water is drawn up
and thrown off from the land, one of which was built at Alkmaar in
1408, another at Schoonhoven in 1450, and a third at Enkhuisen in
1452, were at first driven by horses, and afterwards by wind. But as
these mills were immoveable, and could work only when the wind was in
one quarter, they were afterwards placed not on the ground, but on a
float which could be moved round in such a manner that the mill should
catch every wind[436]. This method gave rise perhaps to the invention
of moveable mills.
It is highly probable, that in the early ages men were satisfied with
only grinding their corn, and that in the course of time they fell upon
the invention of separating the meal from the pollard or bran. This
was at first done by a sieve moved with the hands; and even yet in
France, when what is called _mouture en grosse_ is employed, there is a
particular place for bolting, where the sieve is moved with the hand by
means of a handle. It is customary also in many parts of Lower Saxony
and Alsace, to bolt the flour separately; for which purpose various
sieves are necessary. The Romans had two principal kinds, _cribra
excussoria_ and _pollinaria_, the latter of which gave the finest
flour, called _pollen_. Sieves of horse-hair were first made by the
Gauls, and those of linen by the Spaniards[437]. The method of applying
a sieve in the form of an extended bag to the works of the mill, that
the meal might fall into it as it came from the stones, and of causing
it to be turned and shaken by the machinery, was first made known in
the beginning of the sixteenth century, as we are expressly told in
several ancient chronicles[438].
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