A tower mill is a type of vertical windmill consisting of a brick or stone tower, on which sits a wooden 'cap' or roof, which can rotate to bring the sails into the wind.
This rotating cap on a firm masonry base gave tower mills great advantages over earlier post mills, as they could stand much higher, bear larger sails, and thus afford greater reach into the wind. Windmills in general had been known to civilization for centuries, but the tower mill represented an improvement on traditional western-style windmills. The tower mill was an important source of power for Europe and the Mediterranean for nearly 600 years from 1300–1900, contributing to 25 percent of the industrial power of all wind machines before the advent of the steam engine and coal power. It represented a modification or a demonstration of improving and adapting technology that had been known by humans for ages. Although these types of mills were effective, owing to their complexity, some argue that they would have initially been built mainly by the most wealthy individuals.
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Famous quotes containing the words tower and/or mill:
“It is not their bones or hide or tallow that I love most. It is the living spirit of the tree, not its spirit of turpentine, with which I sympathize, and which heals my cuts. It is as immortal as I am, and perchance will go to as high a heaven, there to tower above me still.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“—First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,—
And the parson was sitting up on a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet’n’-house clock,—
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
MWhat do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!”
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