m r 
lower; with a fe£iion of the cup., Into which the corn be¬ 
ing put, it p.affes down to the upper furfkce of the lower 
{lone ; and is-ground by the rotation of the upper Hone. 
Fig. 3. prefents the lower mill-hone, with its pin, which, 
being received into the upper hone, holds them firmly to¬ 
gether; alfo its hand, which, as a kinder feet, kept it 
,Heady when placed on a table, the lap, &c.” 
As the form of this inftrument is Ample, and needs no 
further explanation, we {hail proceed to notice forae paf- 
fages of Scripture in which it is mentioned, and which 
maybe iiluftrated by a few-remarks. Firft, It is in the 
Eaft, the conliant office of the women to grind corn; 
which they do every morning at day-break. The grinder 
ufually {its down on the floor; and, placing the mill on 
her lap, by means of the handle works the upper flone 
with her right hand. So we read, Exod. xi. 5. of the maid - 
Jervant mho is behind the mill ; and Matth. xxiv. 41. two wo¬ 
men grinding at the mill. In Clarke’s Travels, lately pub- 
liflied, we read, that, when that gentleman and his f riends 
were at Nazareth, they beheld from the windows of their 
apartment, two women grinding corn into flour, with a 
hand-mill, to make bread, exa&ly in the way mentioned 
by our Saviour in the text laft quoted. The two women 
were {eated on the ground oppoflte to each other, holding 
between them two round flat flones. In the middle of 
the upper hone was a cavity for pouring in corn, and by 
the tide of this, an upright wooden handle for moving the 
hone. As the operation began, one of the women with 
her right hand puffed this handle to the woman oppoflte, 
-who lent it back to her companion ; thus communicat¬ 
ing a circular and quick motion to the upper hone, their 
left hands being all the while employed in fuppiying frelh 
corn, as fah as the bran and hour efcaped from the iides 
of the machine. 
By adverting to this cuhom of daily grinding corn for 
the family, we lee the import of the law, Deut. xxiv. 6. 
RomanJ'nali take the nether or the upper mill Ji one, to pledge ; 
far lie takelh a. man's life to pledge ; hnce, if either were 
taken, his wife could not grind her daily proviflon of 
corn for the family. We fee a’lfo the feverity of the pu- 
nifliment of Babylon ; Rev. xviii. 22. The found of a mill- 
licne, which (hculd grind daily, Jhall he heard no more at all 
in thee. We may alfo note the chara&eriftic accuracy of 
the relation in Judges ix. 53. A woman, driven to defpe- 
ration by the'attack of Abimelech on the tower, ran with 
her mill-hone to the top of the wall, and threw, not we 
apprehend, a piece of a mill-Jlcne , but a divifion ©f the 
mill itfelf; for inftance, hg. 2. on the head of Abimelech, 
and iinafiied his flcull: the word 331 recab, “ the rider,” 
(beeaufe the upper hone evidently rides on the under,) 
being inferted, to explain the foregoing words, “ a divi¬ 
sion, i. e. the rider which the woman had only to fe- 
parafe by lifting off from the little peg which united the 
hones together, even if it were not already feparated ; and 
we fee that this hone, if “ two feet broad,” was amply 
fuffi.cient, when thrown from a height, to fradiure the 
fkull of any man. In what degree the under hone was 
harder than the upper is not eaiy to lay ; but, from the 
expreflion, job. xli. 24. His heart is as firm as a ftone ; as 
hard as the nether mUi-Jlnne ; i. e. the under divifion of the 
mill; it fhouldfeem that the finer and dofer-grained hones 
were cholen for that iituation. 
The editor of Calmet’s Dictionary remarks, that we 
discover in the Philihines’ ufage of Samfon, a degree of 
vindictive contempt, which perhaps they could not con¬ 
trive to exceed. That hero being blind, yet of great 
hrength; they made him the grinder for the prifon : it was 
women’s work, therefore feverely degrading to the hero : 
jt was hmple work requiring no art: it was laborious work 
wherein his great hrength was of ufe ; and thus by drudg¬ 
ing for them, he earned a livelihood for himfelf. In this 
view Samion was worle ufed than Job (xxxfi. 10.) {'up- 
poles might befal his wife : “ Let my u ife be fo degraded, 
that, inhead of having her corn ground for her, lhe {hall 
joerfoxm that menial office herlelx 3 and not for herlelf, 
L L. . a 
nor for me, but let her grind for another." Simpfon, the 
hero, ground corn, women’s work, as a vilely-fit employ¬ 
ment for Dalriah’s deluded lover-, he ground too for 
others ! tor thole in prifon with himfelf! Samfon, the 
hero, was employed as Ifaiah calls to the virgin daugh¬ 
ter of Babylon to be : “ Come down, fit in the dujl, Jit on 
the ground! there is no throne; i. e. no chair for thee: 
take the mill-Jlone, and grind meal: nay, more, whereas 
women who grind ufually fing while grinding, Jit thou 
filent, and get into darlinfs : into dark holes and corners, 
endeavouring fomewhat to conceal thy vexation and dif- 
gvace.” Ifaiah xlvii. 1. Did Samfofi thus fit on the 
ground ? filent ?—furely he rather groaned or roared for. 
vexation ! 
We can hardly call fig. 4 a mill; but it is an inftru¬ 
ment ufed for the fame purpofe, though it rather bruifes 
than grinds. It conllfts of two parts; a hollow hone, 
and a roljer, which, being rolled upon the corn to be. 
ground, reduces it to a coarfe meal. Niebuhr tells us 
that this inhrument was ufed on-board the lhip in which 
he voyaged ; and that, after being ufed to it, coffee- thus 
bruiled was elteemed by him fuperior in flavour to that' 
which was ground, as the Arabs maintained that corn 
alfo was. It does not appear to us that it could make any 
difference whatever in either cafe. Calmet's Did. Frag¬ 
ment cix. 
The next ftep in the improvement of mills would be 
fuch a machine as i9 ufed by the Chinele in bruifing their 
rice. A large ftrong earthen veffsl, or hollow ftone, in 
form fomewhat like that which is ufed elfewhere for fil¬ 
tering of water, is fixed firmly in the ground, and the 
grain in it is ftruck with a conical ftone fixed to the ex¬ 
tremity of a lever; and cleared, fometim.es indeed imper¬ 
fectly, from the hulk. The ftone is worked frequently by 
a perfon treading upon the end of the lever, as hrown at 
fig. 5. The fame objeCt is attained alfo by paffing the 
grain between two fiat ftones of a circular form, the upper 
of which turns round upon the other, but at fuch a dif- 
tance from it as not to break the intermediate grain. The 
operation is performed on a larger fcalein mills turned by 1 
water; the axis of the wheel carrying feveral arms, which, 
by ftriking upon the ends of levers, raife them in the fame- 
manner as appears to be done by the man’s feet in the En¬ 
graving. Sometimes twenty of thefe levers are worked, aft 
once. Staunton’s Embaffy, vol. ii. p. 395. 
To elucidate the manner in which corn-mills are mads 
at prefent, we may inftance the hand-mill reprefented at 
fig. 6. where A and B reprefent the two ftones between 
which the corn is ground, and of which the upper one A 
tu-rns round, but the lower one (B) remains fixed and 
immovable. The upper ftone is five inches thick, and 
twenty-one broad ; the lower one fomewhat broader. C 
is a cog-wheel, having fixteen or eighteen cogs, which 
go into the trundle F, having nine {pokes, fixed to the 
axis G, the latter being firmly inferted into the upper 
ftone A at K by means of a piece of iron. FI is the hop¬ 
per into which the corn is put; I the fhoe to carry it by 
little and little, through a hole at K, in betwixt the 
ftones, where being ground into meal, it comes out 
through the eye at L. Both ftones are inciofed in a cir¬ 
cular wooden cafe, of fuch a size as will admit the upper 
one to run freely within it. The under ftone is fupported 
by ftrong beams, not reprefented in the figure ; the fpin- 
dle G hands on the beam N M, which lies upon the bearer 
O. One end of this bearer refts upon a fixed beam, and 
the other has a firing fixed to it, and going round the 
pin P, by the turning of which the timbers of O and M N 
may be railed or lowered, and thus the ftones put nearer 
to or removed farther from each other, in order to grind 
fine or coarfe. When the corn is to be ground, it .muff 
be put into the hopper by little at a time. A man turns 
the handle D, and thus the cog-wheel and trundle are 
carried round alfo together with the ftone A. The axis 
G is angular at K ; and, as it goes round, {hakes the ftipe 
I, and iiiakes the corn fall graduallytthroiigh the hole K, 
