82 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



are small and entail no great expenditure either of building or working. 

 They are convenient and easy to operate, and, though grinding but 

 slowly^ are amply able to meet the small wants of the country-side. 

 " Many of the people who build these mills know as well as any of 

 us the general superiority of an overshot water-mill and the unfitness 

 of the wheel they use to do anything more than the small amount of 

 work which they require of it, and not a few of them thoroughly under- 

 stand the waste of power in the mill ; but, to use the words of one 

 of the crofters, ' If I get all the power I need from the burn, as it 

 flows past, where is the foolishness in leaving the rest unused?' " — 

 " Past and Present," Mitchell, 1876, 39. 



At p. 20 is given an illustration of a Shetland mill (exterior 

 view), as shown in Mitchell's sketches, the little hurst of timber, 

 roofed with thatch or turf, is of merely sufficient size to contain the 

 mill. There is no resident miller. The door usually stands open to 

 all comers, precisely as in the ancient laws of Bohemia, together with 

 the Church, the Court, and the Hall, is stated always to do. 



(p. 22.) — The same type of mill is described in a paper read by 

 Mr. James Jardine to the Hawick Archaeological Society, to have 

 abounded in that district, a list of no fewer than fifty-one being 

 enumerated within a radius of about eight miles. The usual diameter 

 of the stones was from 2^ to 3 feet, and the upper was usually concave 

 on the lower side. "When the controversy as to the identity of the 

 early Hibernian mills was in progress, Mr. P. Chambers, who had 

 then recently visited Norway, recognised the type as that of the 

 horizontal mills of that country, and published the fact in " A Tour in 

 Norway,''^ in his popidar Journal. The Norwegian Norse-mill is still to 

 be found in ordinary use, "housed in structures as rude as may have 

 been that seen by Aoitipater nearly 2000 years ago." 



(p. 23.) — Mr. E. C. Hart (Pobinson & Son, Rochdale) remarks of 

 the Norwegian mills : — " In western Norway we find many of these 

 little mills, in all sorts of places. The spindle is made out of a pine 

 tree, with vertical teeth, there being paddle-blades at one end, and 

 stones at the other." 



(p. 24.) — In Eoumania (valley of the Danube) they have been 

 seen recently at work by Mr. Wilson Marriage, of Colchester, who 

 entertains a high opinion of their value for the kind of work required 

 from them. Mr. Marriage, in a contribution to Milling, accompanied 

 by a photograph, says: " The Norwegian mill bears a striking 

 resemblance to the mills one sees in the Cai'pathians ; and I should 

 think that the mills of Norway and Eoumania are almost identical in 



