102 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



the whole operation is so conducted that eight men and four boys are able to 

 manufacture, under favorable circumstances, the staves and heads for about 

 four hundred barrels a day, at a cost of about six cents per barrel, to which 

 an amount, varying with the location from 4 to 16 cents, should be added 

 for the expense of the lumber, and about 10 cents for hoops and putting 

 together. 



NEW GRINDING MILLS. 



Mr. Thomas Blanchard, the well known inventor, has recently constructed 

 a grain mill on an entirely new and novel principle. Instead of grinding, it 

 saws the gram or whatever substance is put into the hopper. 



For a handmill, steel disks, about two inches diameter, are struck out of 

 sheet steel, with serrated edges, so as to make a notch or tooth every half- 

 inch or inch around the edge. These disks are put upon an arbor with plates 

 or washers between each pair, of the same thickness as the saws, till the 

 arbor is covered about an inch in length. Another set exactly like this is 

 placed upon another arbor, so arranged that the edges come between the 

 saws on the other arbor ; the two being geared together so as to make them 

 revolve towards each other. These sets of plates may be continued to an 

 indefinite length, each set being finer than the preceding. 



The hopper is made to discharge fast or slow by the same motion of the 

 driving crank, to suit the strength of the operator. It is also made to slide so 

 as to bring the opening over each set of disks. Now, supposing you want to 

 grind corn just fine enough for hominy, the hopper is set over the coarsest set 

 of disks, and the corn run through, falling upon a shaking screen that sifts 

 out all the finer portion. Now if you wish to grind that still finer, push the 

 hopper forward and run the meal through again and again. 



As the teeth can never touch each other, so as to wear off dull by the 

 grinding operation, like the cast iron mills or burr stones, they will continue 

 sharp until worn out by the grain itself, which they have failed to do in six 

 months' use. As before remarked, the grain is not ground ; it is cut up by 

 these little circular saws, and whatever comes in contact with them is 

 reduced to sawdust, either coarse or fine, according to the saws in operation. 

 A mill can be built upon a large scale to go by power, so as to grind gram of 

 half a dozen degrees of fineness at the same time. 



The inventor fully believes that this principle of reducing grain to fineness 

 will take less power than any other ever before applied to that purpose, and 

 we believe that every one present fully concurred in this opinion. It grinds 

 every description of grain with equal facility, and will not clog with wet oats 

 or buckwheat. 



A new mill for grinding wheat, recently patented in England, has its pecu- 

 liarity in combining, in one mill, steel and stone grinding surfaces. The first 

 and upper grinding surface is formed of a vertical steel cone which revolves hi 

 a correspondingly shaped fixed cone, and below these cones ordinary grinding 

 stones are fitted horizontally. The corn or other grain is fed into and between 

 the steel cones from a hopper, and in its passage through them becomes very 

 quickly bruised and converted into meal, for which purpose it is well known 



