DOMESTIC MOTORS. 219 



character, and this necessitates a machine that will always be ready 

 for work, or that can be made ready with but little trouble at short 

 notice, and that is no expense, or but very small expense, when not be- 

 ing used. It needs further to be perfectly safe, economical in use, of 

 low first cost, and to require but little care, and that of a kind which 

 can be given by unskilled labor. 



The attempts to make a machine that would answer to these varied 

 requirements have been many, and they have been crowned with great- 

 er or less success. Though it can not be said that the ideal motor 

 has been produced, still there are at present made and on the mai*ket 

 a number of machines of real merit, and some of great excellence, that 

 are all well adapted to the needs of users of light power, including the 

 householder. While in large manufacturing only two machines the 

 water-wheel and the steam-engine can be used, for the purpose of 

 these small powers the range is much greater. Wind and water, 

 steam, hot air, gas, and electricity, are all suitable and are all to a 

 greater or less degree available. I propose in these papers simply to 

 make a brief description of some of the more promising and success- 

 ful machines now on the market, and give such information regarding 

 the sizes in which they are made, cost of working, and prices, as will be 

 of value to the householder and others having use for such a power. 



Though the windmill is one of the oldest of the appliances by which 

 man has sought to turn to his use the powers of nature, it remained 

 until a comparatively recent period a very crude and cumbersome ma- 

 chine. In the earliest form, the wheel was fixed so that it could only 

 turn when the wind was in the right direction ; and later, when it was 

 made movable, the shifting had still to be done by hand as often as 

 the wind veered. Successive improvements were, however, slowly 

 made, the chief ones being the addition of a rudder-vane placed directly 

 behind the wheel in a vertical plane at right angles with its face, and 

 a centrifugal governing device by which the canvas sails were furled 

 and unfurled as the wind varied in strength. The pressure of the 

 wind upon this vane automatically shifted the wheel into the wind, 

 and the action of the governor presented to it a greater or less surface 

 of the sails, securing a uniform velocity with varying wind-pressure. 

 Even with these great improvements the windmill remained a clumsy 

 affair until it was developed by American skill and ingenuity into the 

 present very serviceable machine. As now made it is light and strong, 

 and entirely automatic in answering to the varying direction and pres- 

 sure of the wind. The canvas sails have given place to light wooden 

 slats arranged radially around the wheel at short distances apart, and 

 the whole mechanism has been simplified and vastly improved both in 

 construction and design. The tower is an open-work structure of wood 

 or iron, easily erected and taken down when desired. 



Two methods of regulating the extent of wheel-surface exposed to 

 the wind are now in use, the one acting by centrifugal force as in Eu- 



