Little Old Mills, by Marion Nicholl Rawson, 1935.
In the 1600's countless little mills were buzzing busily throughout the inhabited part of this country. They were hand-power, animal power, wind and water-power mills, grist mills, saw mills, wool and cotton mills and various other kinds of mills. They supplied many things necessary to the life of the Colonists. They manifested primitively all the basic mechanical principles which are used in the industry of the present day - the staff, post, wheel, rude pulley, wedge, incline plane, and screw. This volume is therefore not only a romantic story of those early mills which will delight Americana-ists, but an invaluable source study which will trill American industrialists, who will see in their imaginations how their own great enterprises began. "I have tried to show," says Mrs. Rawson, "the gradual development of milling, beginning with the hole gouged in a tree stump, for a mortar in which corn was to be pounded, and a knot of wood for a pestle; through the use of a stick for a lever to turn millstones; the advance to the wheel and axle with a crank; to the connecting of the axle and shaft with a water wheel or a windmill sail; and so on through milling as far as the coming of the initial factory as such. The history of early mills is also given in part, where established, by whom and for what purpose, and some of the earliest ones which are still standing are listed." The illustrations, also by Mrs. Rawson, include sketches of many of the old mills and early miller's homes, just as they looked; and there are drawings which show various parts of mill equipment, such as old looms, dams, raceways, furrowed millstones, water wheels, water windlasses, and sailing vessel pulleys. The book is filled with that special fragrance which hangs around the thing of Old America and which today lives on in the mild of those who revere the rugged and inventive living of the past. E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC. 300 Fourth Avenue, New York.
FRONTISPIECE: Old sugar-cane mill at De Leon Springs, Brick chimney built in 1769.
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