72 Description of a Machine for breaking Hemp, 



body, which the breaking of hemp in the old way certainly 

 occasions, in consequence of requiring a cross motion of 

 each arm v which makes the breakers complain of a pain 

 about the short ribs on the side they hold the hemp ; and 

 on the opposite side a little under the shoulders, so that 

 breaking of hemp in the old way is a great obstacle to its 

 increased culture. To render labour, therefore, somewhat 

 more easy and expeditious, is an object worthy the first at- 

 tention, and I consider it practicable at a small /expense, 

 and have sent to the Society a model of a machine for this 

 purpose. 



I have observed among the clothiers' and fullers' ma- 

 chinery, great power and rapid motion proceeding from 

 what is commonly called a dash- wheel, erected across a 

 stream of rapid water, the flies or float boards of which are 

 fixed in the octangular axis, from fifteen to twenty- five feet 

 in length, and from three and a half in depth, each flie. I 

 have seen many corn-mills in Upper Canada, with no other 

 water-wheels than such as the above described, which save 

 a vast expense in raising dams, &x. 



There are a number of streams in that part of Canada, 

 which I have endeavoured to describe, (as to the practicabi- 

 lity of the various ways of cultivation,) that are well calcu- 

 lated for such wheels; and where these streams or rivers are 

 not too wide, the axis of the wheel might be extended across 

 so as to reach the land on each side, where I prepare the 

 breakers to~be fixed to go by a tilt the same as a forge ham- 

 mer, and such a simple piece of machinery would not cost 

 more than 70 or SO dollars, as little iron would be wanted, 

 and timber we have for nothing; and when in motion would 

 employ four breakers and two servers, from whom I should 

 expect as much good work as fifteen or sixteen persons could 

 possibly do in the old way, and that without much bodily 

 labour. 



Mills for breaking hemp, on the very same principle as 

 th^t of a saw- mill, as to motion only an addition of an iron 

 crank, so as to run with two cranks instead of one, will 

 something of a larger sweep than that of a saw-mill, woutl 

 be of vast utility in a neighbourhood of a large growth o.f 



hen p. 



