[Illustration: WATER-MILL.]
There is scarcely a boy to be found who, when he has been into the
country and seen the wheel of the old water mill going round, or the fans
of the windmill slowly revolving in the air, has not thought that it
would be pleasant to follow the business of a Miller.
Millers are proverbially jolly fellows, and their houses and the mills
themselves are generally very picturesque, and stand in pleasant country
places; then, again, what wonderful fat perch and chub and pike can be
caught in the weir or the mill stream, and what a quiet sleepy occupation
it must be to lie on the grass or in some great room in the mill,
watching the fans, or listening to the summer breeze wafting through the
sails!
If anybody should think, however, that the Miller’s life is a lazy one
he had better alter his opinion; for, unless he wishes to starve amidst
plenty, the Miller must be up betimes, and, besides working himself,
keeping a good look-out amongst his men, lest both he and his customers
should suffer by their negligence.
The mortar would seem to be the earliest machine used for the purpose
of bruising or reducing grain to a powder, or into a state fit for the
making of bread. By means of the handle the pestle would with tolerable
facility be driven round the mortar, and the grain reduced to a powder,
as is done with certain drugs by the pestle of the apothecary of the
present day.
In process of time, shafts were added to these machines; and in the
opinion of Beckmann, the oldest cattle mills resembled those described in
Sonnerat’s Voyage to the East Indies, in which the pestle of a mortar,
fastened to a stake driven into the earth, is affixed to a shaft, to
which two oxen are yoked. These oxen are driven by a man, while another
is employed in dropping the grain into the mortar and placing it under
the pestle.
We have good reason for knowing that the Romans, for a long time, used no
other instrument than the pestle and mortar.
Pounding continued in use among the Romans so late as after the era of
Vespasian. This fact clearly proves that the Romans were many ages behind
the Eastern world in the arts of civilization, for grinding of corn into
flour was practised, we know, in the times of the patriarchs, and was
probably the invention of the antediluvian world.
The subject-Britons universally adopted the Roman name, but applied it,
as we their successors apply it at present, only to the Roman mill;
still distinguishing their own original mill as we distinguish it, by
its own original denomination of a quern. A Roman or water mill was
probably erected at every stationary town in the kingdom, and it is quite
certain that one was erected at Mancunium (Manchester), serving equally
the purposes of the town and the uses of the garrison. One alone would
be sufficient, as the use of hand-mills was at that time very common
in both, many such having been found about the site of the station
particularly, and the use of them generally having being retained among
us very nearly to the present period. Such mills it would be particularly
necessary to have in the station, that the garrison might be prudently
provided against a siege.
The ancient Asiatic hand-mill consists of two flat round stones, about
twenty inches or two feet in diameter, kept rolling one on the other by
means of a stick, which does the office of a handle. The corn falls down
on the undermost stone, through a hole in the middle of the uppermost,
which by its circular motion spreads it on the undermost, where it is
bruised and reduced to flour; this flour, working out at the rim of the
millstones, lights on a board set on purpose to receive it. The bread
made of it is said to be better tasted than that made by either wind or
water mills: these hand-mills cost only a few shillings of English money.
This description of mill is frequently alluded to in the Scriptures,
and it was the practice for the women to grind corn every morning by
means of hand-mills; and in the East, or at least in many parts of it, it
continues to be the practice to this day.
Water wheels, as far as the figure and construction are concerned, may be
reduced to three kinds, and they are usually known by the names—overshot
wheel, balance wheel, breast wheel, and undershot wheel.
[Illustration: Mill.]
In an overshot wheel, the water is conducted over the top of the wheel,
and acts first by its momentum or mere movement, or motion, and then by
its weight—the weight being its principal power in impelling the wheel
round, the mere movement or motion of the water producing in this case
little effect. The water is received into buckets placed all around the
circle of the wheel. It first strikes the wheel at the top, and filling
the first bucket, by its momentum or moving power, and more particularly
by its weight, it sets the wheel in motion, and consequently makes that
side heavier; and as fresh buckets rise to receive the water, while those
below have emptied themselves, a constant tendency to motion is created,
and rotation is produced.
In a balance wheel, the water strikes the wheel not at the top, but
always more or less above its centre, or axle. This wheel differs in no
respect from the overshot wheel in its construction. It is employed where
there is not a sufficient fall for an overshot wheel, which requires less
water in consequence of its commanding a much greater leverage.
In an undershot wheel the water acts only by its momentum, or moving
power. The circumference of the wheel, instead of being supplied with
buckets, as in the overshot, and breast or balance wheels, is furnished
with floats, or float boards, as they are called, and, being exposed
to the action of a running stream, generally, if not always, increased
in rapidity by making an artificial fall, is thus driven round, and
in flour-mills its force is communicated by cog-wheels to the stones
employed in reducing corn to meal.
In a breast wheel, the water has no previous fall, and therefore does
not strike the floats at the bottom of the wheels, as in the undershot
wheel, with an increased velocity. The breast wheel is therefore fixed
in what is called a race, formed of stone or brick work, agreeing with
the curvature of the wheel, and being thus let on from its own level,
acts both by its weight and momentum, or movement. This wheel is unlike
the undershot wheel, being close boarded round its circumference, like
an overshot or balance wheel, the undershot wheel being always open;
in short, it is a sort of bucket wheel; the buckets, however, being
constructed differently from those of the overshot and balance wheels.
A tide-mill, as the name imports, is worked by the ebbing and flowing of
the tide. Of these mills there are various kinds; first, those in which
the water wheel turns one way when the tide is rising, and the other when
it is falling; secondly, those in which the wheel turns the same way
whether it is rising or falling; thirdly, those in which the wheel itself
rises or falls as the tide flows or ebbs; and fourthly, those in which
the axle of the water wheel is so fixed, that it shall neither rise nor
fall; the rotary motion being still given to the wheel, whether it be
partially or wholly immersed in the water.
All the machines for grinding corn and seeds are mills, whatever may be
their particular application. One very common form is that of an iron
machine, supported on four legs, having a winch handle on one side, a fly
wheel on another, a hopper at the top, and a crushing apparatus in the
centre. The grain or seed is put into the hopper, the winch handle is
turned, the grain becomes crushed to powder, and falls out at the bottom
of the apparatus. Sometimes the mill is made chiefly of wood, but with
iron wheel and crushing apparatus. One kind of wheat mill, in addition
to the usual mill apparatus, has a chest which acts as a flour-dressing
machine. Some mills are adapted for crushing beans rather than seeds.
The crushing apparatus in mills is of two kinds, either one stone working
round in contact with another, or two metallic surfaces, between which
the substance is forced, but between which it cannot pass except in a
fine state.
The _millstones_ employed in grinding corn require to be made of a
peculiar kind of stone. The greater proportion of our millstones are
procured from a particular spot in Western Germany. At about ten miles
from Coblentz is a small town called Andernach, the chief trade of which
is in millstones, procured from the neighbouring quarries of Nieder
Mendig. There are several quarries, averaging about fifty feet in depth,
each quarry shaped like an inverted cone, down the sides of which the
quarrymen descend by a spiral path. The quarrymen have to cut away
through a superincumbent layer of soft porous stone, till they come to
a layer of hard, blackish, heavy stone, regularly porous, and yielding
sparks when struck with iron. This is the millstone, and requires good
and well-prepared tools to work it; it is supposed to be a compact
lava from some extinct volcano; and as there are fissures or gaps at
intervals, these facilitate the separation of the stone into blocks
suitable for millstones. All round the bottom of the conical cavities,
the stone has been excavated in galleries or horizontal passages. The
stones are brought to shape by means of hammers and chisels. A deep
socket is cut through the middle of such stones as are intended for
runners, or upper stones. The furrows on the surfaces of the stones are
produced by means of a double-edged hammer, about 14 lbs. weight.
Windmills are of two kinds; in one the wind is made to act upon vanes
or sails, generally four, which are disposed so as to revolve by that
action in a plane which is nearly vertical; and in the other, the axis
of revolution being precisely vertical, any point on the surface of a
vane revolves in a horizontal plane. The former is called a _vertical_
windmill, and the latter a _horizontal_ windmill.
The building for a vertical windmill is generally a wall of timber or
brickwork, in the form of a frustrum of a cone, and terminated above by a
wooden dome, which is capable of revolving horizontally upon it. A ring
of wood, forming the lower part of the dome, rests upon a ring of the
same material at the top of the wall, and the surfaces in contact being
made very smooth, the dome may easily be turned round upon the wall;
and is prevented from sliding off by a rim which projects from it, and
descends over the interior circumference of the lower ring. The dome in
turning carries with it the windsails and their axle; and thus the wind
sails may be adjusted to agree with the direction of the wind, or the
plane in which the radii of the sails turn may be made perpendicular to
that direction. The revolution is sometimes accomplished by the force of
a man applied to a winch near the ground, but in general the wind itself
is made to turn the dome or the mill by means of a set of small vanes,
which are situated at the extremity of a long horizontal arm projecting
from the dome, in a plane passing through the vertical shaft of the mill,
and on the side opposite to the great sails.
A horizontal windmill is a great cylindrical frame of timber, which is
made to revolve about an upright centre, and its convex surface is formed
of boards attached in vertical positions to the upper and lower parts
of the frame. The whole is enclosed in a fixed cylinder having the same
upright centre as the other; this consists of a _revolving screen_ or a
number of boards, which are so disposed that in whatever direction the
wind may blow, it may enter between them on one side only of a vertical
plane, passing through the axis, and thus give motion to the interior
cylinder. The effective power of the vertical windmill is, however, so
much greater than that of the horizontal windmill, that the latter is now
seldom constructed.
[Illustration: Dressing Machine or Bolter. Jack.]
The _dressing machine_ consists of a hollow cylinder, or frame, covered
with wire cloth of different degrees of fineness, the finest being at the
elevated, or upper end of the cylinder, which is inclined in the same way
as the bolting mill. Within the cylinder, which may be made of pieces
of wood rendered circular, and, like the ribs of an animal, placed at
certain distances from each other, a reel is placed with its axle in the
centre of the cylinder, which is fixed, or stationary. To the rails of
this reel are attached hair brushes, which, when made to revolve, or turn
round, brush against the interior cloth wire surface of the cylinder.
The machine is provided with a shoe or jigger, very similar to that of
the millstones, to cause a regular supply of flour or meal in the same
state in which it came from the millstones through a spout from the floor
above, to which it is elevated by the sack tackle, or elevator, after
being ground. The meal by this means being gradually let, or fed into
the cylinder, is, by the motion of the brushes of the reel, sifted or
rubbed through the cloth wire with which the cylinder is covered. The
finest of the flour will go through the upper end, where the finest wire
cloth is placed; the next finest through the next division of the wire
cloth, which is coarser, the middlings through the following division,
the pollard, or sharps, through the last, and the bran, not being able
to get through the wire cloth at all, on account of its coarseness, is
thrown out at the end of the cylinder. The cylinder is enclosed in a
large and close box, to prevent the waste of flour by its going off in
dust. This box is divided into several compartments, or partitions, by
means of moveable boards. Some millers have more partitions than others,
and indeed they all vary the number to suit the nature or sort of flour
which they are manufacturing. In a dressing machine of three divisions,
the flour deposited in the first is called household, or seconds, that in
the second middlings, and in the third pollard, which is not flour, but a
fine description of bran.
[Illustration: Revolving Screen. Jacob’s Ladder.]
When wheat arrives at a mill to be ground the sacks are received in the
lower part of the mill, and hoisted by means of the sack tackle to the
upper storeys, generally the uppermost. The mode of this operation is
as follows, and it is performed with little bodily labour. The rope or
chain of the sack tackle is firmly fastened round the mouth of the sack
by the man below, who by means of a rope attached to a lever throws the
tackle into gear. The sack then immediately ascends, without any further
aid from the man, through the different trap doors, till it has arrived
at the place of its destination. There another man is ready to receive
it, who, as soon as he has landed it by pulling it on one side, throws
the tackle out of gear, and returns the rope or chain to the man below.
The wheat is then shot into a garner or bin, and thus the same process
goes on till the whole load or cargo is safely deposited in the bin or
garner. The wheat remains there till it is wanted to be ground, when, by
means of a spout, it is conveyed to the hoppers below, and from thence
runs in between the stones. In its progress to the stones, it may, or
may not, be subjected to a cleansing process. The wheat being reduced
to a flour, escapes through an aperture of the floor into a spout, by
which it is conveyed to the trough. It is then either put into sacks,
and drawn up again into one of the higher storeys, and deposited in bins
over the dressing machines, or this is effected by a machine called
an _elevator_, which performs the operation without the assistance of
manual labour. In this bin the flour should be left till, at any rate,
it is perfectly cold, but is will be all the better if it remain for
three or four weeks, provided it be occasionally turned. From this bin
it is passed, by means of a spout, to the hopper of the bolting mill or
dressing machine, by which it is separated from the bran or pollard, and
is then fit for use.
[Illustration: Smutter. Scoop. Claw.]
The _screening machine_ consists of a roller-shaped sieve, so divided,
that the corn which is placed at one end passes over a large surface of
wire as the sieve revolves, and this operation removes from it external
impurities, such as sand and dirt. When it arrives at the end of the
screw the wheat falls into a hopper, by which it is conveyed by spouts
into small hoppers, placed over one side of each pair of millstones. From
these hoppers there are spouts placed in nearly a horizontal line, which
spouts conduct the corn from the hoppers to the eye of the millstone.
They are attached to the hopper, so as to admit of a horizontal motion,
which is effected by a projecting part of the axle or spindle of the
stone, called a _damsel_. It is shaped like a cross, so that, by the
revolution of the millstone, it keeps tapping the end of the spout, and
gives a rapid vibratory motion to it, which causes a regular supply of
corn to enter the eye of the stone; by the action of the stones the corn
is reduced to flour, which passes, by means of spouts, into the troughs
on the ground floor.
[Illustration: Scales and Weights. Troughs.]
The _troughs_ in which the flour is kept; the _scoop_ and _scales_ for
weighing small quantities; the _claw_ for moving and the _steelyard_ for
weighing sacks, are the other principal objects seen in a mill. _Jacob’s
ladder_ is the name given to a revolving band fitted with a number of
leathern cups. These revolve with the band through the flour and serve to
carry it up a shaft from one floor to another.
[Illustration: Steelyard.]