198 



CHAPTER XI 



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FIG. 90 



with long radial arms. The first mill of three rollers was made in Sicily 



in 1449 by Pietro Speciale. This type of mill was used by Gonsales de 



Velosa in 1506 in the first factory erected in the New World, at Rio Nigue, 



in San Domingo, and by 

 old writers is often des- 

 cribed as of his invention. 

 It consisted of three 

 rollers, either horizontal 

 or vertical, with their 

 centres co-linear. Simi- 

 lar ends, and in the 

 latter case upper ends, 

 of the shafts carried co- 

 acting pinions, the cen- 

 tre roll being selected 

 for receiving the drive, 

 which was taken from 

 an overshot water- 

 wheel, a windmill, or 

 from horse, cattle or 

 slave power, moving in 

 a circle at the end of 

 a long beam. This type 

 of mill remained in use 

 for many years ; it is 

 illustrated in Fleming's 



patent (1057, 1773), which contains in addition (and forming the subject 



of the patent) a supplementary roller of smaller diameter and a wooden bar 



set oblique to the roller, the combination serving to direct the once crushed 



cane to the line of contact between the centre and discharge rollers. This 



patent contains the genesis of the 



trash turner. In the old West Indian 



houses the mill itself was often located 



below the ground level, as more con- 

 venient for the application of animal 



drive. These mills were known as 



pit mills. 



Steam power was first applied to 



mills in 1769, this date being fixed by 



a reference in a paper 6 read before the 



Royal Society by the Marquis de 



Cazaux in 1780, stating that eleven 



years earlier a steam engine had been 



sent to Jamaica. Steam power did 



not become common, however, till 



much later ; its introduction into 



Demerara and Surinam took place in 



1815, due to the initiative of a Dutch 



carpenter, Forster. 7 



The first mill with the isosceles triangle combination was made in 1794 



by Collinge, an axle-tree maker of Lambeth. 8 A design of this nature was also 



found amongst Smeaton's papers at his death, with the notation that it was 



FIG. 91 



