It might be added, that it is not indispensable that the canal E should be stationary. Made of wood, or metal, it might turn round a fixed centre, and be braced into the necessary positions with ropes—when the posts only (C F) would have to be removed, or quitted for others duly placed. These ideas are connected with immense effects; and cannot, therefore, be lightly disposed of: they both deserve and require serious attention.
OF
ANOTHER WIND MACHINE,
Furnishing immense Powers.
This is the last of those conceptions I shall now bring forward, for making more than a common use of the WIND as a first-mover of Machinery. Horizontal windmills are well known; and this is a horizontal windmill—yet not like those already in use: for, here, the sails, very large and numerous, are placed on a boat in the form of a ring, which thus moves through the water without any other resistance than that arising from the asperities of it’s surface.
In [Plate 49], [fig. 3], B B is a section of the Vessel, placed in a circular canal D, into which the lower water flows through proper arches (C C) in the banks. The vessel is rigged with several narrow horizontal sails, stretched on ropes between the oblique masts a b, c d; and so placed, that the sails (being a little wider than the interval between the ropes) can open in one direction, but not in the other; and they are shewn open at c d, and shut at a b, in the [figure]. This, therefore, is a mill, that takes all winds; and although it’s uses might be various, we shall finish it’s description as adapted to raise water by the centrifugal force. As before hinted, the canal D D is circular; and has a bank, sloping outward, with a canal (E) on it’s top. When, therefore, the wind blows, the ring boat B (held to the centre by the ropes f g) revolves around it; and by one or more water drags (h) which it carries, collects the water on and up the bank, and finally drives it into the canal E, from which it flows in any destined direction. If for draining watery lands, it will be done rapidly; if for irrigating, it will be done abundantly: if, in fine, for driving any mill with the water thus raised, the machinery will be very efficient, as working with ten or twenty times as much sail, as any other windmill can carry. I add, merely on this occasion, that the sails here mentioned, might be placed obliquely, instead of straight across the ring vessel; (see the plan in [fig. 2] of this [Plate] at E F) from which disposition, nearly all the advantages of the vertical mill might be transferred to the horizontal; and with this remark I leave the present interesting subject to the studious and candid reader.