O'Reilly — Ancient Water-milk, Native and Foreign. 83 



the method of working. A wooden upright has a home-made turbine 

 at the foot, and di'ives a single pair of stones. The mill is started by- 

 shifting the wooden flume conveying the water of the mountain 

 stream on to the wheel. I saw several of these mills at work with 

 no attendant. The owner brings a supply of gxain, fills the hopper, 

 sets the mill going, locks the door, and does not need to return for a 

 day or two. It is a far cry from Norway to the Carpathians, yet we 

 see here two mills which might have been constructed by the same 

 workman, so similar are they in almost every detail, from the 

 foundation of rough stones to the ' log cabin ' mode of building." 



(p. 26.) — In the "Great West" of China the same horizontal 

 mills were seen in frequent use, within the last two or three years, 

 1895 to 1899, by the traveller, Mrs. Bishop (Isabella L. Bird), f.e.g.s., 

 who, in a recent communication to us, states that she saw them in 

 large numbers, especially on the great Ching-tu plain, where no doubt 

 they have been in continuous use from very primitive times. 



Starting in the present paper with the occurrence of this form of 

 horizontal water-mill in Ireland, during ancient times, and following 

 the descriptions of the different authors cited, it has been found to 

 exist or to have existed and been in use in Scotland, the Shetland 

 and Orkney Islands, in Sweden and Norway, in Prance, in Spain (on 

 the northern coast), in Italy, in Eoumania (in the Carpathians), in 

 the Morea, the Holy Land, and Asia Minor, and, finally, it is last seen 

 in western China, by Mrs. Bishop, a most intelligent and observing 

 traveller. The writers last cited, Messrs. Bennet and Elton, seem to 

 rely much on the epigram of Antipater, as placing the invention of 

 this form of water-mill in Greece, and seem disposed to date the 

 invention at about 85 b.c. But taking into consideration the wide 

 extent of Europe and Asia, over which its former and recent presence 

 has been determined, and the still more important fact that it has been 

 frequently met with by Mrs. Bishop on the western plains of China 

 in her very recent travels in that country, that these plains adjoin the 

 great central plateau of Asia, from which it is generally admitted the 

 earliest emigrations of a civilized race proceeded towards the west, it 

 is not exceeding the limits of the probable in presuming that the 

 water-mill in question formed part of the industrial appliances 

 developed by the people who inhabited the central plateau and its 

 dependencies, and that it passed with the successive hordes of 

 emigrants in their slow march towards the west, and must thcrefoie 

 be considered of very high antiquity, much more ancient than even 



