AGR T CULTURAL MECHANICS AND RURAL ECONOMY. 33 



Machines for Dressing Flour. 



The following is an abstract of a paper recently read before the London Society of Arts, 

 by Mr. T. Egan, on the above subject: — 



" The mode of dressing meal after it is ground into flour is a subject that, no doubt, has 

 engaged the attention of men in all ages, from the earliest dawn of civilization, when men 

 first began to settle down from hunting and the chase, and to grow corn and cultivate land 

 for human subsistence ; but it must soon have occurred to them, even in a rude state, that 

 the outer skin or bran made their cake dark in color, and was not nutritious or good for 

 human food ; so that they would soon try to devise means for separating this outer covering 

 of the seed from the fine flour. Most probably the first invention for this purpose was the 

 skins of sheep, or other animals, perforated with small holes, and fastened to a wooden 

 frame. This frame being shaken, flour would pass through, while the bran would remain 

 above. The second step, probably, was the invention of a sort of sieve, made with very 

 thin slips of narrow wood, crossed upon, and worked down into each other, forming a kind 

 of weft and warp, which was attached, as they best knew how, to hoops. To this sieve a 

 semi-rotatory shaking was given, so that the fine part or flour was let through, while the 

 larger particles were held in the sieve. This kind of sieve is, to this day, used in many 

 parts of Great Britain; but growing intelligence, however, has substituted wire sieves, 

 which do the work both quicker and better. But, as population increased, and the wants 

 of man became more numerous, the primitive mode of sifting by hand was too slow a pro- 

 cess/ and could not long supply the wants or gratify the tastes of the more enlightened 

 people. Then it was that power was first applied to sifting meal and dressing it into flour, 

 by means either of wind or water ; and as soon as power became thus employed, the reel 

 was introduced, very nearly as we have it at the present day. This reel consisted of a 

 wooden hexagonal frame, some six or eight feet in length and two in breadth, with a wooden 

 spindle or shaft through the centre ; over and on the frame was drawn a kind of stocking 

 or web material, sewn together in two or more parts, into which the meal was let from a 

 hopper above. The shaft being connected with the mill, motion was communicated to the 

 reel, and the meal was dressed into flour. The next thing to be considered is the kind of 

 web or stocking put upon this reel. The most ancient kind was made of fine linen, proba- 

 bly in six pieces sewn together ; and it is a curious fact, that in Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, 

 England, America, and France, this ancient reel is the same in form and shape throughout, 

 except that in some parts of France it is five or six times as long, and is driven much 

 slower. The material used for the bolting-cloth was that which was most easily attainable 

 in each country. In Germany and England, linen stretched and stitched with six seams was 

 the first kind of cloth; and there is no question or doubt but in the process of time, and at 

 a very early period, a mixture of linen and woollen cloth, called linsey, was used ; but in 

 France, where silk was easy to be obtained, they adopted it for bolting-cloth. It has been 

 found, by experience, that a silk web cannot be driven at the same rate of speed as the 

 German and English cloths ; a fact which should be borne in mind by millers when they 

 fancy they have discovered wonders in dressing with silk. The next improvement in order 

 in the dressing of flour is the improvement of bolting-cloths, which was followed by the 

 system of dressing flour through an iron wire-cloth. In this arrangement the reel was 

 changed for circular wooden frames, three or four being used to each sheet or width of 

 wire, as they were considered to afford support to the wire. Though the centre of the 

 cylinder is a shaft, to which a series of brushes are attached, driven at the rate of 800 or 

 400 revolutions per minute, while the cylinder is stationary. This machine stands at an 

 inclination of three or four inches to the foot. The meal is introduced at the upper end or 

 head of the machine, and, in passing from one to the other, the flour is pushed through the 

 wire by the revolution of the shaft, while the bran is retained in the cylinder until it reaches 

 the lower end, where it falls into a hopper. This machine is apt to clog, and it becomes 

 necessary for the miller to clear the outside of the wire cylinder from time to time with a 

 hand brush. This mode of dressing obviously produces great pressure upon the wire, and 

 the brushes force the finer particles of bran through the wire, along with the flour. Con- 



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