A watermill is a structure that captures the power of moving water through a water wheel or turbine to drive machinery, historically used to grind grain into flour, cut lumber, make paper, process textiles and work metal. Water is diverted from a river or pond along a channel, often called a flume, mill race or penstock, toward the wheel or turbine, and the force of the moving water turns the blades and rotates an axle connected to the mill's other machinery, with sluice gates used to control flow for maintenance or flood control. The Greeks are credited with inventing the two essential components, the water wheel and toothed gearing, with the engineer Philo of Byzantium describing water driven wheels as early as 280 to 220 BC and the Roman engineer Vitruvius giving the first technical description of a watermill around 40 to 10 BC. Watermills spread widely through the Middle Ages, with England's Domesday Book recording 5,624 of them in 1086, growing to between 10,000 and 15,000 by 1300, and with mills especially common in medieval France and throughout the Islamic world by the eleventh century.
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Disputed
YearM.J.T. Lewis dates the invention of the vertical-wheeled watermill to Ptolemaic Alexandria around 240 BCE, with the horizontal-wheeled type slightly earlier, at the Greek colony of Byzantium in the first half of the 3rd century BCE. The earliest surviving technical description, by the Roman engineer Vitruvius, is not until the late 1st century BCE. SignificanceWatermills freed early industry from human and animal muscle by harnessing flowing water to grind grain, saw lumber, make paper, and work textiles and metal, and their gearing carried directly into later windmills and steam-era machinery. 1 Connections
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1. Watermill (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationHistory, Classical antiquity subsection
Lewis assigns the date of the invention of the horizontal-wheeled mill to the Greek colony of Byzantium in the first half of the 3rd century BC, and that of the vertical-wheeled mill to Ptolemaic Alexandria around 240 BC.
Lead section, first paragraph
It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of many material goods, including flour, lumber, paper, textiles, and many metal products.
In Field: Mechanical Engineering, Categories
Hydraulic engineering
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