Every-day Science: Volume 6. The Conquest of Nature

by Henry Smith Williams; Edward Huntington Williams

WINDMILLS OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TYPES.

The smaller figures show Dutch windmills of the present day, many of which are identical in structure with the windmills of the middle ages. It will be seen that the sails can be furled when desired to put the mill out of operation. In the mill of modern type (large figure) the same effect is produced by slanting the slats of the wheel.

It has been affirmed that the Romans had windmills, but "the silence of Vitruvius, Seneca, and Chrysostom, who have spoken of the advantages of the wind, makes this opinion questionable." It has been supposed by other writers that windmills were used in France in the sixth century, while still others have maintained that this mechanism was unknown in Europe until the time of the Crusades. All that is tolerably certain is that in the twelfth century windmills were in use in France and England. It is recorded that when they began to be somewhat common Pope Celestine III. determined that the tithes of them belonged to the clergy.

INHERENT DEFECTS OF THE WINDMILL

The mediæval European windmill was supplied with great sails of cloth, and its picturesque appearance has been made familiar to everyone through the famous tale of Don Quixote. The modern windmill, acting on precisely the same principle, is a comparatively small affair, comprising many vanes of metal, and constituting a far more practical machine. The great defect of all windmills, however, is found in the fact that of necessity they furnish such variable power, since the force of the wind is incessantly changing. Worst of all, there may be protracted periods of atmospheric calm, during which, of course, the windmill ceases to have any utility whatever. This uneradicable defect relegates the windmill to a subordinate place among prime movers, yet on the other hand, its cheapness insures its employment for a long time to come, and the industry of manufacturing windmills continues to be an important one, particularly in the United States.

RUNNING WATER

The aggregate amount of work accomplished with the aid of the wind is but trifling, compared with that which is accomplished with the aid of water. The supply of water is practically inexhaustible, and this fluid being much more manageable than air, can be made a far more dependable aid to the worker. Every stream, whatever its rate of flow, represents an enormous store of potential energy. A cubic foot of water weighs about sixty-two and a half pounds. The working capacity of any mass of water is represented by one-half its weight into the square of its velocity; or, stated otherwise, by its weight into the distance of its fall. Now, since the interiors of the continents, where rivers find their sources, are often elevated by some hundreds or even thousands of feet, it follows that the working energy expended—and for the most part wasted—by the aggregate water current of the world is beyond all calculation. Meantime, however, a portion of the energy which in the aggregate represents an enormous working power is utilized with the aid of various types of water wheels.

Watermills appear to have been introduced in the time of Mithridates, Julius Cæsar, and Cicero. Strabo informs us that there was a watermill near the residence of Mithridates; and we learn from Pomponius Sabinus, that the first mill seen at Rome was erected on the Tiber, a little before the time of Augustus. That they existed in the time of Augustus is obvious from the description given of them by Vitruvius, and the epigram of Antipater, who is supposed to have lived in the time of Cicero. But though mills driven by water were introduced at this early period, yet public mills did not appear till the time of Honorius and Arcadius. They were erected on three canals, which conveyed water to the city, and the greater number of them lay under Mount Janiculum. When the Goths besieged Rome in 536, and stopped the large aqueduct and consequently the mills, Belisarius appears to have constructed, for the first time, floating mills upon the Tiber. Mills driven by the tide existed at Venice in the year 1046, or at least in 1078.

The older types of water wheel are exceedingly simple in construction, consisting merely of vertical wheels revolving on horizontal axes, and so placed as to receive the weight or pressure of the water on paddles or buckets at their circumference. The water might be allowed to rush under the wheel, thus constituting an under-shot wheel; or more commonly it flows from above, constituting an over-shot wheel. Where the natural fall is not available, dams are employed to supply an artificial fall.