In a very recent bright work published in London, by Richard Bennett and John Elton, on Corn Mills, etc., they say on this point: “The mill of the last century, that, by which, despite its imperfections, the production of flour rose from one of the smallest to one of the greatest and most valuable industries of the world, was essentially a structure of few parts, whether driven by water or wind, and its processes were exceedingly simple. The wheat was cleaned by a rude machine consisting of a couple of cylinders and screens, and an air blast passed through a pair of mill-stones, running very close together, in order that the greatest amount of flour might be produced at one grinding. The meal was then bolted, and the tailings, consisting of bran, middlings and adherent flour, again sifted and re-ground. It seems probable that the miller of the time had a fair notion of the high grade of flour ground from middlings, but no systematic method of procedure for its production was adopted.” The upper and the nether mill-stone is still a most useful device. The “dress,” which consists of the grooves which are formed in the meeting faces of the stones, has been changed in many ways to meet the requirements in producing flour in varying degrees of fineness. Machines have been invented to make such grooves. A Swiss machine for this purpose consists of two disks carrying diamonds in their peripheries, which, being put in rapid revolution, cut parallel grooves in the face of the stone. A great advance in milling was made both in America and Europe by the inventions of Oliver Evans. Evans was born in the State of Delaware, U.S., in 1755, and died in 1819. He was a poor boy and an apprentice to a wheelwright, and while thus engaged his inventive powers were developed. He had an idea of a land carriage propelled without animal power. At the age of 22 he invented a machine for making card teeth, which superseded the old method of making them by hand. Later he invented steam-engines and steam-boats, to which attention will hereafter be called. Entering into business with his brothers within the period extending from 1785 to 1800, he produced those inventions in milling which by the opening of the 19th century had revolutionised the art. A description of the most important of these inventions was published by him in 1795 in a book entitled _The Young Millwright and Miller’s Grist_. Patents were granted Evans by the States of Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania in 1787, and by the U.S. Government in 1790 and 1808. As these inventions formed the basis of the most important subsequent devices of the century, a brief statement of his system is proper: