Tiller on Holland mill. Chain-wheel on tower mill.
Cubit’s automatic tail wheel, England.Turntable mill, rollers and snubbing posts.
[WINDMILL TAIL BEAMS OR TURNING GEAR.]
For keeping mill-head on the wind.

Probably the next device for turning to the wind was the use of a chain pull, connected to overhead gear wheels and a cogged track; for not only is this found in some early mills of Holland, and in the mills at Newport, R. I., but also in the rare old Peyto mill at Leamington, England, of 1632, of which I shall speak further. These chain pulls were either inside or out; the former being more protected from the weather.

But all these hand devices were completely eclipsed by another invention of Cubit—he of the “patent” sweep-shutter—known as Cubit’s tail vane. This was the use of a small wheel of from 4 to 10 vanes, usually 6, placed in the rear of the head of the mill, up aloft, and so connected by a train of small gearing that when it rotated it would turn the main head a little, and if need be follow up the variations of the wind. So accurately was this designed that it is said that even with the wind shifting but a couple of degrees around the horizon the tail wheel would then begin to turn, and with its gearing would in turn wind the mill head, carrying the sweeps, into the wind. This automatic arrangement was almost universally adopted in England, in the better class of mills; yet, with the stolidity of the Dutch temperament, apparently content to continue with hand labor as did their grandfathers, this admirable device was rarely transplanted even to a place as nearby as Holland.

Turning now from the mechanical side of these old mills, as above, it is interesting to note the varied forms, uses and characteristics as found in the diverse parts of the world, and in the variety of races where and by whom these old home-made motors have been used.

Holland is usually taken as the home of the windmill, but that is so only in the greater proportionate number there in use than elsewhere. It is not true as regards origin nor the best development of them. It is a country notably flat, without water power, on the sea coast, and requiring great pumping equipment for draining, etc. This early resulted in the great number of windmills there found and associated with that little kingdom. It is said that in early days there were 10,000 of them. The greater number of them were used for lifting water to drain the “polders,” or meadows or lowlands, through the medium of a scoop wheel or Archimedes screw. Some of them can yet be seen and in use, with fat Dutch babies apparently ever on the edge of falling in the sluiceways, yet never doing so. Nearly all of these mills have been replaced by great steam-driven government pumping stations. For sawing wood, also, great numbers are yet used in the Zaandam district, where several hundred can be seen almost adjacent, a vista and forest of windmills. And in the heart of the chief cities one yet sees, here and there, an old-time brick tower mill, probably 200 years old—a family heritage, with its clean and trim curtained little Dutch windows, its individual name, as of a ship, such as “The Admiral” or “The Parrot,” over the door, and its old coat of arms and carvings and touches of color. For the Dutchman is fond of his substantial woodwork, and of his bits of color; and such finds expression in his mills, where carving like the stern of an old galley and color stripings of all the rainbow are both tucked in and flagrantly added.