Ancient Machines

Wind Power

Wind powered boats as sales were added to augment rowing. Wind powered ancient grinding mills. Pictures of Holland show vintage windmills everywhere.  Wind is now used to generate electricity when the wind blows.

Water Power

Water mills were also common for grinding grain and other uses. Water power is still used to produce electricity using water turbines at low cost per kwh.  Watermills are found on the downhill side of rivers and streams where water is diverted to a trough to turn a wheel.

Mills

Mills are essentially wheels turned to rotate a shaft. Early versions of Mills were powered by slaves and animals walking and pushing the wheel spokes to rotate the shaft.

Mills were set up to use wind and water power. Mills can be used to grind, hammer, crush, stamp, saw, pump water, make paper, draw wire and roll material flat, saw stone and marble, crush quartz to extract gold and open heavy gates.

The main shaft for a windmill is typically vertical and enters the building from the top and extends to the building below where the grain is ground, like the windmills you see in Holland with the sails on top and the grinding house on the bottom.

The typical shaft for a watermill is horizontal and enters the building from the side and requires a gear mechanism to connect to a second shaft that is vertical.

Watermills

Watermills were in use as early as 300 BC. Many were used to grind grain into flour and some were used to hammer quarts to extract gold. Later mills were used to saw lumber and make paper.

Windmills appeared later with the first wind-powered device in 100 AD. Windmills were used to grind grain and pump water. They were used world-wide to solve specific problems and increase productivity. By 1300AD there were hundreds of windmills in operation in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill

Ancient Discoveries

The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking.

The Bronze Age began in China in 2400BC and began in Europe in 2300 BC. The discoveries made in metallurgy, smelting and metal forming allowed the manufacture of metal tools.

The Copper Age, was an era of transition between the stone tool-using farmers of the Neolithic and the metal-obsessed civilizations of the Bronze Age. The Copper Age was really a phenomenon of the eastern Mediterranean regions, and occurred from roughly 3500 to 2300 BC

The Iron Age began about 2000 BC.  Steel was produced from melting wrought iron and caste iron about 400 BC. Steel became the favorite metal for weapons and tools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age

Gunpowder

Gunpowder was invented in China in the 9^th century and was used as a weapon in Europe in the 12^th century. It was used as a crude hand weapon in the 13^th century and the canon was developed in the 14^th century. The Musket appeared in the 15^th century and continued to improve, until it was replaced in 1860 by the repeating rifle and repeating pistol.

Science

Thales of Miletus (7th and 6th centuries BCE), dubbed "the Father of Science" for refusing to accept various supernatural, religious or mythological explanations for natural phenomena, proclaimed that every event had a natural cause.

Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE), a student of Plato, promoted the concept that observation of physical phenomena could ultimately lead to the discovery of the natural laws governing them.

Archimedes (287–212 BCE) developed elaborate systems of pulleys to move large objects with a minimum of effort.

Hipparchus (190–120 BCE), focusing on astronomy and mathematics, used sophisticated geometrical techniques to map the motion of the stars and planets, even predicting the times that Solar eclipses would happen.

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452- 1519AD) the artist contributed to anatomy, botany, geology, cartography, hydrodynamics, astronomy, alchemy, engineering, invention, bridges, hydraulics, war machines, flight,

Thomas Savery was the first person to invent a steam pump for the purpose of pumping out water in 1698. He called it “water by fire". The steam pump patented by him worked by boiling water until it was completely converted into vapor.

In 1738 Lewis Paul and John Wyatt of Birmingham patented the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing cotton to a more even thickness, using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds. 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader