[384] When Moses threatened Pharaoh with the destruction of the first-born in the land of Egypt, he said, “All the first-born shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth on the throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill.”--Genesis, ch. xi. v. 5. See Homeri Odyss. vii. 103, and xx. 105. [385] Apuleii Metamorph. lib. ix. [386] The oldest cattle-mills have, in my opinion, resembled the oil-mills represented in plate 25th of Sonnerat, Voyages aux Indes, &c., i. Zurich, 1783, 4to. To the pestle of a mortar made fast to a stake driven into the earth, is affixed a shaft to which two oxen are yoked. The oxen are driven by a man, and another stands at the mortar to push the seed under the pestle. Sonnerat says, that with an Indian hand-mill two men can grind no more than sixty pounds of meal in a day; while one of our mills, under the direction of one man, can grind more than a thousand. [387] Voyage du Lévant, 4to, p. 155. [388] A haycock was called _meta fœni_. Colum. ii. 19. Plin. xxvii. 28. [389] Niebuhr’s Déscription de l’Arabie. A figure of both stones is represented in the first plate, fig. H. [390] Memorie di varia erudizione della Societa Colombaria Fiorentina. Livorno, 1752, 4to, vol. ii. p. 207. [391] No. 282, p. 1285, and in the abridgement by Jones, 1700-20, vol. ii. p. 38. [392] Joh. Heringii Tractatus de Molendinis eorumque jure. Franc. 1663, 4to. A very confused book, which requires a very patient reader. F. L. Gœtzius De Pistrinis Veterum. Cygneæ 1730, 8vo. Extracted chiefly from the former, equally confused, and filled with quotations from authors who afford very little insight into the history or knowledge of mills. Traité de la Police, par De la Mare.--G. H. Ayrer, De Molarum Initiis; et Prolusio de Molarum Progressibus, Gottin. 1772.--C. L. Hoheiselii Diss. de Molis Manualibus Veterum. Gedani 1728.--Pancirollus, edit. Salmuth. ii. p. 294.--Histoire de la vie privée des Francois, par Le Grand d’Aussy. Paris, 1782, i. p. 33.--See Fabricii Bibliographia Antiq. Hamburgi, 1760, p. 1002. [393] Plin. lib. vii. c. 56. [394] Stephan. De Urbibus, v. μυλαντία. [395] Pausanias, iii. c. 20. edit. Kuhnii, p. 260. [396] Strabo, lib. xii. edit. Almelov. p. 834. In the Greek stands the words ὑδραλέτης, perhaps an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, which the scholiasts have explained by a water-mill. In many of the later translations of Strabo that word is wanting.