The purpose in this development was to transfer weight from the pivoted upper portion of the mill to solid ground beneath it. In the tower mill, almost the whole mill became a firm structure. Only the cap, holding the sails and their axle, needed to be turned to face the wind. Turning this cap was far easier than turning the whole body of a post mill. Small to start with, tower mills became quite large when mechanical means were developed to adjust sail area. The tallest English tower mills were more than one hundred feet high at the hub of the sails, with sweeps that reached out as much as forty feet. The so-called “smock mill,” common in Holland and brought to England probably in the time of James I, is a tower mill whose structure is framed and covered in wood rather than built up of masonry. Examples of this variety of mill can still be seen on Nantucket Island, Cape Cod, Long Island, in Rhode Island, and perhaps elsewhere. The eastern end of Long Island contains more colonial windmills than any other part of the United States today, and all without exception are smock mills. _INDIAN CORN AND COLONIAL MILLS_ Both windmill and watermill have been intimately associated with the development of the English colonies in America from their earliest days. This, of course, is not a matter of wonderment since bread was the staff of life then even more than it is today. No doubt all the early settlements had mortars or small hand mills, and in many cases they also employed larger ones powered by animals. The first settlers at Jamestown in 1607 brought with them full and detailed instructions drawn up in advance by the Virginia Company of London. The 144 men and boys were to be divided into three working groups: one to build a fort, storehouse, church, and dwellings; the second to clear land and plant the wheat brought from home; and the third to explore the surrounding countryside in search of the Northwest Passage, mineral riches, or other resources that might return dividends to the company’s stockholders. As it turned out, the planting of grain received less than prime attention. Defense against the Indians was a more pressing demand, and many of the gentlemen settlers were unwilling to soil their hands with menial labor. An exploring party, however, reported that it had observed at the falls of the James River five or six islands “very fitt for the buylding of water milnes thereon.” [Illustration: _From an etching by James D. Smillie entitled “Old Mills, Coast of Virginia.” The original—now in the New York Public Library—was made in 1890, probably on Virginia’s Eastern Shore._] Several years seem to have passed before any mill was built in Virginia. In 1620 the Company sent word that it considered the construction of watermills of first importance. The next year it specifically instructed the colonists to erect corn mills and bake houses in every borough.