Rice. 115 
" The whole process of preparation may be described as follows : 
From a shed attached to the mill house the rough rice is taken by means 
of elevators up to the highest apartment in the building, to be passed 
through a sand screen revolving nearly horizontally, which in sifting out 
the grit and small grain rice, separates also all foreign bodies and such 
heads of rice as were not duly threshed. 
" From the sand screen the sifted rough of large size is conveyed 
directly to the stones on the same floor, where the husk is broken and 
ground off, thence to a wind-fan below, where the chaff is separated and 
blown off. The grain is now deposited in a long tin placed over the 
pestle shaft, and corresponding in length with it, whence the ground 
rice is delivered by wooden conductors into the mortars on the ground 
floor. These mortars are constructed of four pieces of the heart of pine 
seasoned. They are in figure a little more than a semi-ellipsoid and 
are made to contain four and a half bushels of ground rice each. 
" The pestles, also constructed of the heart of pine and corresponding 
in number and position with the mortars, are sheathed at foot with sheet 
iron, partially perforated from within by some blunt instrument, so as to 
resemble the rough surface of a grater. They are intended to weigh 
each 240 to 28ofl5s. or thereabout, are lifted by levers six feet long 
attached to the large pestle shaft, and make about forty -five strokes in a 
minute. A mortar of rice is sufficiently pounded in one hour and forty 
minutes to two hours. The grain thus pounded is again elevated to the 
upper floor to be passed through a long horizontal rolling screen 
slightly depressed at one end, where by a system of grading wire-sieves, 
becoming coarser and coarser towards the lower end, are separated first 
.he flour, second the small rice, third the middling rice, fourth and last 
the prime rice which falls through the largest web, and forthwith 
descends to the polishing or brushing screen below, whence it descends 
through a fan into the barrel on the first floor, where it is packed, and 
the preparation is completed. The head rice or largest grains of all, 
together with rough unbroken by the stones, passes off at the lower end 
of the screen to be pounded over. 
: The brushing screen consists of a vertical cylinder or drum, two 
feet in diameter, by from four and a half to six feet in height, to the 
surface of which are attached, vertically, shreds of sheepskin closely 
packed ; this drum is made to revolve with great velocity within and 
lightly brushing a cylindrical frame of iron wire made into a fine sieve 
In passing down spirally between this clothed drum and the exterio, 
P 2 
