THE PULLEY AND WINDLASS.
In those vast periods preceding the dawn of history, water was as heavy and as necessary for the use of mankind and animals as it is to-day; the toil and labor in securing it must indeed have been hard. Doubtless, the first inventions of the primitive man were first made—perhaps, after weapons of defence—to relieve himself of the painful endeavor of supplying the precious liquid.
There are reasons which render it probable that the single pulley was devised to raise water and earth from wells; the latter are not only of the highest antiquity but they are the only known works of man in early times in which the pulley could have been required or applied. That it preceded the invention of ships and the erection of lofty buildings of stone, is all but certain; but for what purpose, save for raising of water, the pulley could have been previously required it would be difficult to divine; it seems to have been the first addition made to those primitive implements, the cord and the bucket.
By it the friction of the rope in rubbing against the curb and the consequent loss of a portion of the power expended in raising the water, were avoided, and by it also a beneficial change in the direction of the power was attained; instead of being exerted in an ascending direction, it is applied more conveniently and efficiently in a descending motion as shown in the various figures and illustrations in the preceding pages.
But the grand advantage of the pulley in the early ages was this:—by it the vertical direction in which men exerted their strength, could be directly changed into a horizontal line, by which change animals could be employed.
The wells of Asia, frequently varying from two to three, and even four hundred feet in depth, obviously required more than one person to raise the contents of an ordinary sized vessel; and where numbers of people depended on such wells, not merely to supply their domestic wants, but for the purposes of irrigation, the substitution of animals in place of men to raise water, became a matter almost of necessity, and was certainly adopted at a very early period. In employing an ox for this purpose, the simplest way and one which deviated the least from their accustomed method, was merely to attach the end of the rope to the yoke, after passing it over a pulley fixed sufficiently high above the mouth of the well, and then driving the animal a distance equal to its depth, in a direct line from it, when the bucket charged with the liquid would be raised from the bottom.
Although it may never be known to whom the world is indebted for the windlass, there are circumstances which point to the construction of wells and raising of water from them, as among the first uses to which it as well as the pulley, was applied. The windlass possesses an important advantage over the single pulley in lifting weights, or overcoming any resistance since the intensity of the force transmitted through it can be modified, either by varying the length of the crank, or the circumference of the roller on which the rope is coiled. Sometimes a single vessel and rope, but frequently two, are employed as shown in several of the preceding illustrations; one of these is the Chinese Windlass. This furnishes the means of increasing mechanical energy to almost any extent, and as it is used to raise water from some of those prodigiously deep wells already noticed, a figure of it, [page 47], has been inserted. The roller consists of two parts of unequal diameters, to the extremities of which the ends of the rope are fastened on opposite sides, so as to wind round both parts in different directions. As the load to be raised is suspended to a pulley, every turn of the roller raises a portion of the rope equal to the circumference of the thicker part, but at the same time lets down a portion equal to that of the smaller; consequently the weight is raised at each turn, through a space equal only to half the difference between the circumferences of the two parts of the roller. The action of this machine is therefore slow, but the mechanical advantages are proportionately great.
