68

The Windlass.

[Book I.

CHAPTER X.

The Windlass: Its origin unknown-Employed in raising water from wells, and ore from minesChinese windlass-Other inventions of that people, as table forks, winnowing machines, &c. &c. Fusee: Its application to raise water from wells-Its inventor not known. Wheel and pinion-AngloSaxon crane-Drum attached to the windlass roller, and turned by a rope: Used in Birmah, England, &c. Tread wheels: Used by the Ancients-Moved by men and various animals-Jacks-Horizontal tread wheels-Common wheel or capstan. Observations on the introduction of table forks into Europe.

THE WINDLASS.

ALTHOUGH it may never be known to whom the world is indebted for the windlass, there are circumstances which point to the construction of wells and raising of water from them, as among the first uses to which it, as well as the pulley, was applied. The windlass possesses an important advantage over the single pulley in lifting weights, or overcoming any resistance; since the intensity of the force transmitted through it, can be modified, either by varying the length of the crank, or the circumference of the roller on which the rope is coiled. Sometimes a single vessel and rope, but more frequently two, are employed, as in the figure, No. 18.

No. 18. Windlass. From Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus.

The buckets are suspended from opposite sides of the roller, the rope winding round it in different directions, so that, as one ascends, the other descends. Pliny, in his Natural History, xix, 4, mentions this machine as used by the Romans for raising water; and in the 36th book, cap. xv, when speaking of a canal for draining the marsh Fucinus, part of which passed through a mountain, he says the water which flowed in upon the workmen was raised up "with device of engines and windles." As there was not any apparatus attached to the public wells in Greek and Roman cities, or if so, to a very limited extent, it is probable the windlass was chiefly used in the country, where its application to deep wells was perhaps as common as it is in other parts of the world at the present time. It has always been used in raising ore and water from mines. Agricola has given several figures of it as employed in those of Hungary, where

Chap. 10.]

Chinese Windlass.

69

it has probably been in uninterrupted use since the Roman era. Sometimes it was placed on one side of the well, and at a short distance from it, the ropes passing through pulleys that were suspended over its mouth. By this arrangement water may be raised to any required height above the windlass; an advantage in some cases very desirable. Belidor has given a similar figure, and observes that such machines were extensively used in the Low Countries. Sometimes a series of pulleys were combined with it. In an old work, we have seen the windlass attached to a large tub in which water or coal was raised, so that one or more persons might ascend and descend, without the aid of others on the surface of the ground; the ropes being passed through a block above the mouth of the pit. It is very probable that these applications of it were known to the Greeks and Romans. Switzer, in his 'Hydrostatics,' says, the ancients used the windlass for raising water, and that all their machines of a similar construction were classed under the general name of Budromia.

There is a very peculiar and exceedingly ingenious modification of the windlass, which may here be noticed, and for which we are indebted to the Chinese. It furnishes the means of increasing mechanical energy to almost any extent, and as it is used by them to raise water from some of those prodigiously deep wells already noticed, (p. 30,) a figure of it, (No. 19.) is inserted. The roller consists of two parts of unequal diameters, to the extremities of which, the ends of the rope are fastened on opposite sides, so as to wind round both parts in different directions. As the load to be raised is suspended to a pulley, (See fig.) every turn of the roller raises a portion of the rope equal to the circumference of the thicker part, but at the same time lets down a portion equal to that of the smaller; consequently the weight is raised at each turn, through a space equal only to half the difference between the circumferences of the two parts of the roller. The action of this machine is therefore slow, but the mechanical advantages are proportionably great.d

No. 19. Chinese Windlass.

No. 20. Fusee Windlass.

This is the neatest and most simple modification of the wheel and axle, that human ingenuity has devised, and is a proof that the principles of mechanical science were well understood in remote ages; for every me

a De Re Metallica, Basil. 1657. p. 118, 119, 160.

b Architecture Hydraulique, tom. 2, p. 333.

Besson's Theatre des Instrvmens Mathematiques et Mechaniques. A Lyon, 1579. 4. The Chinese,' by J. F. Davis, vol. ii, 286.

20

70

The Fusee.

We are not

[Book I. chanician, we think will admit, that mechanical tact and ingenuity, unaided by scientific knowledge, could never have devised it. It exhibits a species of originality so unique, so simple and efficient, that evidently shows it to have been the conception of no common mind. At what time it was first taken to Europe, we have not the means of ascertaining. It has but recently, i. e. comparatively so, been described in books. aware of its having been noticed in any, previous to the last half century. It appears to have been introduced like several other standard machines from the same source, so gradually, that the precise period of its first arrival cannot easily be determined. Considering the long period, during which European nations have maintained an intercourse with the Chinese, the recent introduction of this machine may appear singular; but very little is yet known of that people, although an intimate acquaintance with their arts, would probably enrich us with treasures, more valuable than their teas and their porcelain.

There is a large debt of gratitude due to the Chinese, which has never been sufficiently acknowledged. It is to them, we are indebted for some of the most important discoveries connected with the present state of the arts and sciences. From them was derived the chief of all arts, PRINTING, and even movable types, and that invaluable acquisition, the mariner's compass; peculiar stoves, chain-bridges, spectacles, silver forks, India ink, chain-pump, winnowing machine,d besides many others; and to correct a popular error, which attributes to our fellow citizens of Connecticut, the invention of wooden hams,' it may as well be remarked, that these are also of Chinese origin. Le Comte, says they are so adroitly constructed, that numerous buyers are constantly deceived; and frequently it is not till one is boiled and ready to be eaten, that it is dicovered to be "nothing but a large piece of wood under a hog's skin." But if China has produced specimens of dishonest ingenuity, she has, in the tread-mill, furnished one of the greatest terrors to evil doers.

A large Fusee is sometimes used in place of the cylindrical roller of a windlass, especially in wells of great depth. When a bucket is at the bottom, and the weight of a long rope or chain has to be overcome in addition to that of the water, it is accomplished more easily by winding up

a "These stoves are extremely convenient, and deserve to be made known universally in our country. Some of our company took such stoves with them to Gottenburgh, as models for those who might want to know their construction." Osbeck's Voyage to China, vol. i, 322.

b"The use of silver forks with us, by some of our spruce gallants taken up of late, came from China to Italy, and from thence to England." Heylin's Cosmography, Lon. 1670. p. 865.

The secret of making it, was brought by a Dutch supercargo to Göttingen in 1756, and there divulged. Lon. Mag. for 1756. p. 403.

This was also brought first to Holland in the beginning of the 18th century, whence it soon spread over Europe. It was carried to Scotland in 1710. Walter Scott, has incorporated in one of his novels, an historical fact relating to the superstition of his countrymen respecting it. When first introduced, the religious feelings of some were greatly shocked at an invention, by which artificial whirlwinds were produced in calm weather, when, as they supposed, it was the will of God for the air to remain still. As they considered it a moral duty to wait patiently for a natural wind, to separate the chaff from their wheat, they looked upon the use of this machine, as rebellion against heaven, and an attempt to take the government of the world out of the Creator's hands! Constant readers of the Bible, the more superstitious of the Covenanters imagined it was a cunning device of the Wicked One, the Prince of the power of the Air,' and therefore one of those works, which Christians are called to guard against and renounce! It was introduced into America in 1761, as a Dutch machine for winnowing grain." The first one, was made in Massachusetts, "by the directions of a gentleman in the Jersies," during the same year. Lon. Mag. for 1761. p. 273. Davis' Chinese. vol. ii, 361.

Chap. 10.]

Wheel and Pinion.

71

the rope on the small end of the fusee; and as the length diminishes, it coils round the larger part. (See No. 20, which is however inaccurately drawn as the bucket is at the top of the well, it should have been represented as suspended from the large end of the fusee.) The value of a device like this, will be appreciated when the great depth of some wells is considered, and the consequent additional weight of the chains. In the fortress of Dresden is a well, eighteen hundred feet deep; at Spangenburgh one of sixty toises; at Homberg, one of eighty; at Augustburgh, is a well at which half an hour is required to raise the bucket; and at Nuremburgh another, sixteen hundred feet deep. In all these, the water is raised by chains, and the weight of the last one is stated to be upwards of a ton: Misson, (vol. i, 116,) says three thousand pounds.

It is to be regretted that the name of the inventor of the fusee, and the date of its origin, are alike unknown. It forms an essential part in the mechanism of ordinary watches; for without it they would not be correct measurers of time. Every person knows that the moving power in a clock is a weight, and that the various movements are regulated by a pendulum; but neither weights nor pendulums are suited to portable clocks, or watches; hence a spiral spring is adopted as the first mover in the latter, and when coiled up, as it is by the act of winding up' a watch, the force which it exerts, imparts motion to the train of wheels; but as this force gradually diminishes as the spring unwinds, the velocity of the train would diminish also, if some mode of equalizing the effect of this varying force was not adopted: It is the fusee which does this, by receiving the energy of the spring when at its maximum, on its smaller end; and as this energy diminishes, it acts on the larger parts, as on the ends of levers, which lengthen in the same ratio as the force that moves them is diminished.

In another modification of the windlass, a cog-wheel is fixed to one end of the roller, and moved by a pinion that is secured on a separate shaft, and turned by a crank, as in the figure. By proportioning the diameter of the wheel and that of the pinion, (or the number of teeth on each) according to the power employed; a bucket and its contents may be raised from

72

Anglo Saxon Crane.

[Book I. any depth, since a diminution in the velocity of the wheel from a smaller pinion, is accompanied with an increase of the energy transmitted to the roller and vice versa.

The Greeks and Romans employed the wheel and pinion in several of their war engines, and in various other machinery. Part of a cog-wheel was discovered in Pompeii. They probably were also employed, as in No. 21, to raise water from deep wells, a purpose for which they have been long used in Europe. See Belidor, tom. ii, liv. 4. From some experiments made by Mr. Robertson Buchanan, it was ascertained that the labor of a man in working a pump, turning a winch, ringing a bell, and rowing a boat, might be represented respectively by the numbers, 100, 167, 227, and 248; hence it appears that the effect of a man's labor in turning a windlass, is fifty per cent, more than in working a pump in the ordinary way by a lever.

As a man cannot, with effect, apply his strength conveniently to a crank that describes a circle exceeding three or four feet in diameter, another ancient contrivance enabled him to transmit it through a series of revolving levers, inserted into one or both ends of the roller; and which extended to a greater distance from the centre than the crank, as in the copper-plate printing press, the steering wheel of ships and steam vessels, and numerous other apparatus employed in the arts. It was formerly used to raise water in buckets from mines and wells, and even to work pumps: (cams being secured to the roller, raised the piston rods in a manner similar to the common stamping mills.) Agricola has figured it as applied to both purposes. De Re Metallica, 118, 129, 141. is an example of its application by the Anglo Saxons, from Strutt's Antiquities.

No. 22. Anglo Saxon Crane.

No. 22,

"There cannot be a more expeditious way to raise water from a deep well, than to make a large wheel, [drum] at the end of the winlace, that may be two or three times the diameter of the winlace, on which a smaller and longer rope may be wound, than that which raises