International Molinology

Journal of The International Molinological Society

No. 63, December 2001 / summary - résumé

Editorial
by Michael Harverson
     Observant TIMS members may have noticed on the cover of IM 62 that the designation has been changed to "Journal". It was felt that "Bulletin" inadequately expressed the character of the publication as it had developed under Yolt Ijzerman, the previous editor and initiator of the present format. The role of a bulletin is to disseminate news items, as formerly did our TIMS Newsletter, edited by Kenneth Major. We still retain "Communications", and "TIMS News", but the first half, at least, of our 40-odd pages are given over to "Original Papers", a traditional feature of scholarly journals.

     Please enjoy the content of the new issue.

Small Composite Windmills on the Coasts of Europe
by Chris Gibbings

     The more my collection of mill pictures has grown over the years, the more I have realised that a number of composite windmills, once scattered here and there on the coasts of Europe, had a definite family resemblance. They are all set very near the sea, either on islands or at the end of a peninsula reaching far out from the main coastline.

     Their basic characteristics are a solid circular stone tower and a rectangular or circular wooden body containing the machinery, which in all cases but one seems to revolve round the top of the supporting tower on a rail or on wheels. Going by the cases seen and documented by molinologists, there is usually an iron pin fixed upright in the centre of the tower which is socketed in the crowntree, for greater solidity and to stabilise the rotation process.

     The only valid explanation of this design that I can find, mere conjecture and not 100% exact, is that on these outlying rocky capes, the winds were very strong and that therefore small mills were preferred to the generally higher mills in use elsewhere. However, this assumption does not explain why a wooden body was preferred in places where conical stone towers were predominant. These are wind-battered, barren outposts of the European coastline, treeless and inhospitable. There was no wood readily available, so it must have come from shipwrecks, as on Ouessant where the local people even went as far as luring ships onto the rocks.

     What can be said about these mills that feature among the photos in my collection?

	Azores, Fayal Island (Fig 1) See my article in International Molinology No 49, December 1994, complete with bibliographical references. These mills have been well documented. The card here is postmarked 1948.
	France, Pointe du Van, Finistère (Cover and Fig 8) These mills were recorded in the early 1950s by Rex Wailes, Donald Muggeridge and Charles Homualk. The photo from Donald Muggeridge’s collection (Cover) is dated 2.9.1950; the other (fig 8), closer to, was taken by Charles Homualk; neither has been published hitherto.

(5 pages, 11 pictures)

Panster Mills
by H.G. Muller

     These are mills associated with certain large rivers of central Europe whose water levels vary greatly. There does not seem to be an English equivalent for this type of mill (German: Panstermühle), where the water wheel is vertically adjustable, usually by one metre. Furthermore, the English term ‘undershot’ for the wheel is unterschlächtig in German, but there is no English equivalent for tiefschlächtig, the deeply immersed wheel peculiar to the panster mill.

     The oldest known panster mills are the Gunters Mill in Arnstadt, that dates from 1572, and the mill of the knight’s estate at Trebesen near Grimma from 1591. The panster wheel is regarded in Germany as the first important development of the water mill since antiquity, and these big river mills were an early step towards industrialisation. They could have up to ten water wheels driving twenty pairs of stones.

     It seems that the first writer to deal extensively with the various designs was Leonhardt Christoph Sturm, whose account was published in Rigsburg in 1718 [1]. In his introduction he tells us that there are already several books on mills. He mentions Jac. Stroda’s book of 1617 [2], Böckler’s Theatrum Machinarum of 1663 [3], and Zeising’s of 1614 [4]. However, he tells us that all their pictures were drawn by hand and from perspective, hence no measurements or proportions are available. Then, their pictures are compositions and "multiplications". Useful inventions were so altered and hidden, that they could not be used. Finally, there is no proper text, no practical instructions and no calculations: "Solcher Gestalt sind solche Bücher in der That nichts nutz" ( Such books are indeed useless).

Fig.1 shows diagramatically a common arrangement [5]. The shaft (6) had to remain horizontal and was raised by two chains (4) hanging from a horizontal shaft (3). The drive shafts to the stones could be angled for gearwheels (7 and 8) to remain in contact. Sturm points out that the horizontal shaft (3) adds to the expense of the structure. He suggests doing away with it and having two men at either end, who, as the miller rings a little bell, each raises one end of the shaft (6) by the same amount. The usual panster machinery was protected from the elements by a roof at right angles to the main building and this gave these big continental river mills their characteristic appearance (fig 2)[6].

(3 pages, 6 pictures)

Corn Grinding Windmills in Cypres (18th - 20th centuries)
by Euphrosyne Rizopoulou - Egoumenidou

     The aim of this short overview of the wind-powered flour mills in Cyprus, is to open a new chapter in the pre-industrial technology of the island, on a specific topic that has remained almost completely ignored; furthermore to create an incentive for further research as well as for the protection and preservation of the very few surviving windmills.

Figure 8: The windmill in Akaki, Nicosia District (Archive of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 1964).

(7 pages, 9 pictures)

A Rare Wooden Windmill in Turkey
The windmill of Karakol village, Balikesir Province
by Leo van der Drift

larger picture IM63-01

Karakol, a small rural village of about 25 houses, is situated about 15 kilometres northwest of the provincial capital of Balikesir in the northwestern part of Anatolia, south of the sea of Marmara and some 100 kilometres southwest of the city of Bursa. The mill was first brought to my attention when reading a brief article by Richard Schultz which appeared in TIMS Newsletter 38 of February 1989 (p.5). It mentions the existence of three windmills at what was mistakenly called Farakol. I visited it in July 2000.

(3 pages, 8 pictures)   


Callington Windmill, Oatlands, Tasmania
by Barry and Eleanor Bjorksten

     Callington Mill at Oatlands in the Midlands of Tasmania is a five-storey stone tower mill, with a Lincolnshire ogee cap and fantail (Fig.1), and when operating had four ‘patent’ sails and the machinery to drive two pairs of French burr stones. The history of the mill is reasonably well documented (see IM 61 p.25), however our knowledge of it in the early years of the 20^th century is somewhat sketchy, especially in relation to its dilapidation and a fire.

(4 pages, 7 pictures and drawings)

The Relation Between Millstone Speed and Sail or Waterwheel Speed
by Michael Yates
     Acknowledgements.

    My initial thoughts and conclusions on this subject appeared in a short article in Sussex Mills Group Newsletter No 109, January 2001 and I am grateful to them for the opportunity to pursue the topic further after the responses to the initial article. I would like to thank the seven English wind and water millers who replied to my questionnaire and P. S. Jarvis whose thoughts on the subject inspired me to explore new propositions.

(3pages, pictures and calculations)

The Ancient Site and Mill of Terme Segestane, Sicily
by Vincenza Martino

(5 pages, pictures and drawings)

Other subjects

1. Institute of Hellenic Mills

2. A Watermill on the Greek Island of Lesbos
   by Alan Gifford

3. News from South Africa
   by Joanna Marx

4. Windmills in the Baltic States
   by Michael Skues

5. Windmills of Alexandria
   by Michael Harverson

6. Windmills on Stamps
   by Leo van der Drift

7. Book Reviews
   

8. TIMS Council Meeting 2001
   by Michael Harverson
   
        The TIMS Council met on 2 June 2001 in the reconstructed Crawley Hall  at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum at Singleton in Sussex, England. Nine members were present.
   
   
   

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  ISSN 1024-4522
  This summary of the 63rd  Jounal of The International Molinological Society
  has been prepared by Gerald Bost, Berlin -January 2002.
  The complete printed version can be ordered from TIMS Publication Officer:
  Leo van der Drift
  Groothertoginnelaan 174 b/c
  NL-2517 EV Den Haag
  The Netherlands                 
  

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Published: dinsdag, november 06, 2007 12:47:50