CHAP. X.

HAND MILLS, MANGLES, CHAFF CUTTERS.

ANTIQUITY OF MILLS. FRENCH MILITARY MILL. CYLINDER, OR BRUISING MILLS. - CUTTING MILLS. COMMON COFFEE MILLS. TERRY'S MILL. POLLARD'S EPICYCLOIDAL MILL. COMMON MANGLE. - IRONS, AND CRIMPING MACHINES. BAKER'S PATENT MANGLE.— PECHY'S AND CHRISTIE'S MANGLES.

-CHAFF CUTTERS.

Hand Mills.

THE machines named at the head of this chapter are mentioned together, not on account of any direct resemblance-for, with the exception of the crank handle and fly wheel, they have few parts in common with each other-but because they may be regarded as coming generally under one class of manufactures. Of these useful contrivances, mills are undoubtedly the most ancient, the most indispensable, and consequently the most largely in demand. The theory and construction of mill-works, in the large and usual acceptation of the term, belongs to engineering; and a volume, rather than a chapter, would be required for their most compendious elucidation. In the present article, therefore, it is intended merely to mention some of those machines for the comminution of various substances, which are put in operation by the hand, having generally a rotary motion and a fly wheel; and which, as they are in universal requisition, constitute a considerable item of our local manufactures in iron and steel, as connected with the useful arts.

The word mill is often used in a very loose acceptation, even by professional writers; hence we have rolling mills for the flatting of metal, flour mills for the grinding of corn, sawing mills for the cutting up of

timber, and oil mills for the pressing of oleaginous seeds-all differing widely in their principles. The most ancient mills were undoubtedly those in which the method of levigation was rudely employed: of these, the muller, somewhat resembling the common stone mortar and pestle, is the simplest form, and our best flour mills the most perfect exhibition. As almost all the mills for grinding corn, colours, &c. depend upon the principle of attrition between two stones, the description of them does not belong to this place. There is, however, one machine, which, no less on account of the ingenuity displayed in its construction, and the circumstances which brought it into notice, than with respect to its materials, merits a passing notice. We refer to the French military mill-so called from having "formed part of the camp and field equipage of the immense army with which Napoleon invaded the Russian empire in the year 1812; an expedition which, for the vast ambition which dictated it, the gigantic efforts by which it was organised, the military skill and experience of its conductors, and, finally, for the combination of disastrous events which characterised its progress, and terminated in its failure, is perhaps unparalleled in the annals of history." In this machine, cut plates of steel are used instead of stones; and in 1824, Messrs. Taylor and Jones, of Cheapside, obtained a patent for а "circular steel corn-mill," on the principle of the foregoing, and including some improvements. This machine, they state, is calculated to grind barley, beans, and other descriptions of grain, as well as wheatthough undoubtedly it may be considered in the most useful and interesting point of view, as a portable mill for the production of bread-flour.

The mill adapted for the crushing of malt, sugar, &c. consists of two cast-iron cylinders, having their surfaces turned exactly true with the slide lathe, and placed parallel to each other in an horizontal position; their axles being at the same time so arranged in sliding beds, as to admit of the surfaces of the cylinders being

brought nearer to one another or removed farther apart, as required, by means of a regulating screw. The following cut (fig. 78.) represents a stout and

useful crushing mill for ordinary purposes; the whole machine is of iron, with the exception of the hopper and the spouts. A is a cast-iron frame, put together by screws; B C, the crushing cylinders; to the axle of the former is attached the handle for giving motion to the mill. At each end of this cylinder there is a deep flange or margin, which, by embracing a portion of the other cylinder, prevents the matter about to be crushed from flying off. Upon the axle of the second cylinder is fixed the fly wheel D; the two axles on that side are connected by cog wheels, in order to equalise the revolution of the crushing rollers. A hopper of wood, E, receives the malt, or whatever substance is ground; and F, a spout, is so disposed, that, by the shaking of the mill, the contents of the hopper are scattered between the cylinders. Another spout, G,

receives and conveys away the bruised charge.

Mills for splitting or cutting beans for horses are constructed on a principle similar to the foregoing, with the difference, that instead of large cylinders having

smooth surfaces, there are solid rollers of less diameter, and cut with longitudinal and somewhat oblique grooves, so as to present a series of acutely angular edges, between which whatever substance passes is more or less masticated, as the cutting of the rollers happens to be fine or otherwise.

The mill used in grinding coffee, whether its appearance be that of an ornamental box, as seen in many private families, or of black iron, as fixed in the grocers' shops, is formed on a principle denominated the quern. A solid piece of hard metal, of a conical figure, and grooved on the surface, as represented below (fig. 79.), A, having an axis passing through it for the purpose Fig. 79.

D

of fixing and giving motion to the quern, is a principal part. This cone is either made of steel, cut with a chisel, and then hardened, or cast of chilled pig iron, and then sharpened a little by dressing. This quern is fixed so as to revolve within a box of steel or cast iron, B, having on its inside sharp grooves, similar to those on the piece last described, but smaller. In using these mills, whether held horizontally, as is the case with most of the portable ones, or placed vertically, as those fixed in shops and kitchens commonly are, the substance to be ground, on being put into the cup or hopper, is gradually caught and crushed to powder by the revolution of the inner cone, the grooves upon which, running obliquely, act as a screw during the turning; the coffee when ground falling into the little drawer D. The outer cases of some of these mills for grinding

coffee are, as already stated, made of mahogany or japanned metal; and of one of these the sketch in the margin is a section: they are not less ornamental than useful accessories of the breakfast room in many houses, the flavour of the coffee being supposed to depend in no small degree upon its being ground immediately before its infusion. In general, however, coffee is ground by what is called a flanch mill, having the body composed of rolled iron, and being screwed against a post in the kitchen, in the same manner as we often see it in the retail shops. In consequence of the general use of coffee as a breakfast luxury, a prodigious quantity of mills of this description are manufactured in this country, more particularly in the town and neighbourhood of Birmingham; nor is the consumption of them at all inferior in the United States, if we may believe an American author, who says that upwards of 200,000 coffee-mills are annually made at Middletown, in Connecticut.

Several years since, the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, &c. rewarded an individual of the name of Terry for an improved iron mill for grinding hard substances. The following is a description of Mr. Terry's mill:-(Fig.80.) A is the hopper; B a spiral wire

Fig. 80.

H