CHAPTER XVII 



WINDMILLS 



If the horse is excepted, the windmill was the first kind 

 of a motor used to relieve the farmer of physical exertion 

 and increase his capacity to do work. With the exception 

 of the horse, the windmill is still the most extensively 

 used. To prove that the windmill is an important farm 

 motor, it is only necessary to cite the fact that many 

 thousand are manufactured and sold each year. 



421. Early history Prof. John Beckmann, in his "History of 

 Inventions and Discoveries," has given everything of special interest 

 pertaining to the early history of the windmill. As it is conceded 

 by all that his work is exhaustive, the following notes of interest 

 have been taken from it. Prof. Beckmann believes that the Romans 

 had no windmills, although Pomponius Sabinus affirms so. He 

 also considers as false the account given by an old Bohemian annal- 

 ist, who says that before 718 there were windmills nowhere but in 

 Bohemia, and that water mills were then introduced for the first 

 time. Windmills were known in Europe before or about the first 

 crusade. Mabillon mentions a diploma of 1105 in which a convent 

 in France is allowed to erect water wheels and windmills. In the 

 twelfth century windmills became more common. 



422. Development of the present-day windmill. It was about 

 the twelfth century that the Hollanders put into use the noted 

 Dutch mill. These people used their mills for pumping water from 

 the land behind the dikes into the sea. Their mills were constructed 

 by having four sweeps extending from a common axle, and to these 

 sweeps were attached cross pieces on which was fastened canvas. 

 The first mills were fastened to the tower, so that when the direc- 

 tion of the wind changed the owner would have to go out and 

 swing the entire tower around ; later they fastened them so that only 

 the top of the tower turned, and in some of the better mills they 

 were so arranged that a smaller mill was used to swing the wheel 

 to the wind. The turning of the tower was no small matter when 

 one learns that some of these mills were 140 feet in diameter. 



