The steam engine came into use in the early part of the nineteenth century. By 1825 most of the principal English cities had it in use. Before that period, and dating back to remote ages, the only sources of power--other than man or bullocks, etc.--were the two great forces of wind and water. But only countries of waterways and varying levels afforded waterfalls; while the wind was universal. Therefore, while water wheels were in use in parallel periods with the oldest of windmills, in number they were infinitely less, so that one can properly say that the world’s motor for some eight centuries was the old-time windmill. These eight centuries are from about 1000 to 1825, when, with the advent of Watt’s invention, the zenith of windmill design and use had been attained. After that date they so declined that in fifty years not only had new construction ceased, but the old structures in very large measure had fallen into decay and abandonment. It is evident from the above that an account of this old, picturesque, historic and effective tool of mankind should have some interest, both from the standpoint of engineering and that of sentiment; and it is believed that what follows will give the essential facts relating to it. It may be proper to say here that what is related applies entirely to the old-style windmill, and in no measure whatever to the modern American type of windmill, which, while cheap, effective and useful, is nevertheless a prosaic, galvanized iron, squeaky thing, of which happily the larger proportion of the millions annually made is exported out of our country! While the antiquity of windmills is traced by some back to the Romans there is really nothing very definitely known of their existence before the period of the Crusaders. They were said to have been brought into central Europe in that period from the Far East; though this is open to question. Practically their origin is lost in antiquity, and we only know that they appear in the earliest records as existent in some form or other. But by 1200 they were well established. The first English windmill is of 1191. There are numerous records of them in the thirteenth century. There is a brass tablet of 1349 at Lynn church, with a windmill graven on it. In old stained glass of the early churches windmills are shown in some of the landscapes; as at Great Greenford and Fairfield. In a view, “London in the time of the Tudors” (1560), windmills are seen; and Great Windmill Street commemorates to this day the location of one in the past in that city. Elsewhere it was the same. Rembrandt, of the early part of the seventeenth century, shows such mills in some of his pictures; and in the early prints and views of France, Germany and other countries is abundant evidence of the use of these old, useful machines, in various forms, places and ways.