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Treadwheel
A treadwheel, or treadmill, is a form of engine typically powered by humans. It may resemble a water wheel in appearance, and can be worked either by a human treading paddles set into its circumference (treadmill), or by a human or animal standing inside it (treadwheel). These devices are no longer used for power or punishment, and the term "treadmill" has come to mean an exercise machine for running or walking in place. History Uses of treadwheels included raising water, to power cranes, or grind grain. They were used extensively in the Greek and Roman world, such as in the reverse overshot water-wheel used for dewatering purposes. They were widely used in the Middle ages to lift the stones in the construction of Gothic cathedrals. There is a literary reference to one in 1225, and one treadwheel crane survives at Chesterfield, Derbyshire and is housed in the Museum. It has been dated to the early 14th century and was housed in the top of the church tower until its removal in 1947 ...
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Treadwheel Crane
A treadwheel crane (Latin: ''magna rota'') is a wooden, human powered hoisting and lowering device. It was primarily used during the Roman period and the Middle Ages in the building of castles and cathedrals. The often heavy charge is lifted as the individual inside the treadwheel crane walks. The rope attached to a pulley is turned onto a spindle by the rotation of the wheel thus allowing the device to hoist or lower the affixed pallet. History Ancient Rome The Roman ''Polyspaston'' crane, from Ancient Greek πολύσπαστον (polúspaston, “compound pulley”), when worked by four men at both sides of the winch, could lift 3000  kg. In case the winch was replaced by a treadwheel, the maximum load even doubled to 6000 kg at only half the crew, since the treadwheel possesses a much bigger mechanical advantage due to its larger diameter. This meant that, in comparison to the construction of the ancient Egyptian pyramids, where about 50 men were needed to move ...
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Treadmill Crane
A treadwheel crane (Latin: ''magna rota'') is a wooden, human powered hoisting and lowering device. It was primarily used during the Roman period and the Middle Ages in the building of castles and cathedrals. The often heavy charge is lifted as the individual inside the treadwheel crane walks. The rope attached to a pulley is turned onto a spindle by the rotation of the wheel thus allowing the device to hoist or lower the affixed pallet. History Ancient Rome The Roman ''Polyspaston'' crane, from Ancient Greek πολύσπαστον (polúspaston, “compound pulley”), when worked by four men at both sides of the winch, could lift 3000  kg. In case the winch was replaced by a treadwheel, the maximum load even doubled to 6000 kg at only half the crew, since the treadwheel possesses a much bigger mechanical advantage due to its larger diameter. This meant that, in comparison to the construction of the ancient Egyptian pyramids, where about 50 men were needed ...
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Treadwheel Crane
A treadwheel crane (Latin: ''magna rota'') is a wooden, human powered hoisting and lowering device. It was primarily used during the Roman period and the Middle Ages in the building of castles and cathedrals. The often heavy charge is lifted as the individual inside the treadwheel crane walks. The rope attached to a pulley is turned onto a spindle by the rotation of the wheel thus allowing the device to hoist or lower the affixed pallet. History Ancient Rome The Roman ''Polyspaston'' crane, from Ancient Greek πολύσπαστον (polúspaston, “compound pulley”), when worked by four men at both sides of the winch, could lift 3000  kg. In case the winch was replaced by a treadwheel, the maximum load even doubled to 6000 kg at only half the crew, since the treadwheel possesses a much bigger mechanical advantage due to its larger diameter. This meant that, in comparison to the construction of the ancient Egyptian pyramids, where about 50 men were needed to move ...
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Penal Treadmill
A penal treadmill (penal treadwheel or everlasting staircase) was a treadmill with steps set into two cast iron wheels. These drove a shaft that could be used to mill corn, pump water or connect to a large fan for resistance. Penal treadmills were used in prisons in the early Victorian Britain as a method of exerting hard labour, a form of punishment prescribed in the prisoner's sentence. History The prison treadwheel was introduced in 1818 by the British engineer Sir William Cubitt (1785–1861) as a means of usefully occupying convicts in the prisons at Bury St Edmunds and Brixton. There had been simple two-man treadmills in prisons before which were used for raising water and grain preparation: these were on a large scale and for a different purpose. Cubitt observed prisoners lying around in idleness, and opined that it was better "reforming offenders by teaching them habits of industry." It was intended to be pointless and to punish; resistance to the motion was provided b ...
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Treadmill
A treadmill is a device generally used for walking, running, or climbing while staying in the same place. Treadmills were introduced before the development of powered machines to harness the power of animals or humans to do work, often a type of mill operated by a person or animal treading the steps of a treadwheel to grind grain. In later times, treadmills were used as punishment devices for people sentenced to hard labor in prisons. The terms ''treadmill'' and ''treadwheel'' were used interchangeably for the power and punishment mechanisms. More recently, treadmills have instead been used as exercise machines for running or walking in one place. Rather than the user powering a mill, the device provides a moving platform with a wide conveyor belt driven by an electric motor or a flywheel. The belt moves to the rear, requiring the user to walk or run at a speed matching the belt. The rate at which the belt moves is the rate of walking or running. Thus, the speed of running may b ...
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Animal Engines
An animal engine is a machine powered by an animal. Horses, donkeys, oxen, dogs, and humans have all been used in this way. An unusual example of an animal engine was recorded at Portland, Victoria in 1866. A kangaroo had been tamed and trained to work a treadmill which drove various items of machinery. See also *Experiment (horse powered boat) *Gin gang *Horse mill *Horse engine *Persian well *Treadwheel *Turnspit dog The turnspit dog is an extinct short-legged, long-bodied dog bred to run on a wheel, called a turnspit or dog wheel, to turn meat. It is mentioned in ''Of English Dogs'' in 1576 under the name "Turnespete". William Bingley's ''Memoirs of Briti ... Books * ''Animal Powered Machines'', J. Kenneth Major. Shire Album 128 - Shire Publications 1985. * * References * Grinding mills Machinery {{livestock-stub ...
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List Of Historical Harbour Cranes
The list of historical harbour cranes includes historical harbour cranes from the Middle Ages to the introduction of metal cranes in the Industrial Revolution during the 19th century. Modern reconstructions are also listed. References * * * See also *Treadwheel crane A treadwheel crane (Latin: ''magna rota'') is a wooden, human powered hoisting and lowering device. It was primarily used during the Roman period and the Middle Ages in the building of castles and cathedrals. The often heavy charge is lifted as ... {{Commons category, Historical cranes * Harbour cranes de:Hafenkran#Liste historischer Hafenkräne ...
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Ken Major
John Kenneth Major ARIBA, FSA, popularly known as Ken Major (21 October 1928 – 25 July 2009) was an architect, author and world authority on industrial archaeology, particularly windmills, watermills and animal powered machines. As an author, he was known as J Kenneth Major. Early life Ken Major was born in Reading, Berkshire on 21 October 1928. His parents were Katharine May Major (née Ridge) and John William Major. He was christened John Kenneth Major but owing to a number of John Majors in the family he was generally referred to as Ken. Major attended the Boy's Grammar School at Leigh, Lancashire, where his father was the headmaster, from 1939 to 1945. He then attended a school in Kendal until 1946. Major was interested in ancient buildings from an early age. He recalled cycling to Winwick church aged 8 to see the carved pig (symbolic of a legend about the church being relocated to a pre-Christian site) there. Higher education Owing to the high number of demobbed ex ...
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Horse Mill
A horse mill is a mill, sometimes used in conjunction with a watermill or windmill, that uses a horse engine as the power source. Any milling process can be powered in this way, but the most frequent use of animal power in horse mills was for grinding grain and pumping water. Other animal engines for powering mills are powered by dogs, donkeys, oxen or camels. Treadwheels are engines powered by humans. History The donkey or horse-driven rotary mill was a 4th-century BC Carthaginian invention, with possible origins in Carthaginian Sardinia. Two Carthaginian animal-powered millstones built using red lava from Carthaginian-controlled Mulargia in Sardinia were found in a 375–350 BC shipwreck near Mallorca. The mill spread to Sicily, arriving in Italy in the 3rd century BC. The Carthaginians used hand-powered rotary mills as early as the 6th century BC, and the use of the rotary mill in Spanish lead and silver mines may have contributed to the rise of the larger, animal-powered m ...
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Experiment (horse-powered Boat)
''Experiment'' was an early 19th-century boat powered by horses and incorporating the idea of a screw propeller, which was a new idea at the time. History ''Experiment'' was a horse-powered ferry boat. It was a 12-ton, three-masted boat drawing a few feet of water, about long by beam.) in 1807 to 1810, depending on the source. p. 31 ''Mr. Varnum Wilkinson, now living (1859), built "The Experiment," he thinks in 1809 or 1810. '' It was propelled by a "goose-foot paddle," a large mechanical screw propeller in the water instead of a paddle wheel at water surface. The new technology devised by Grieve and Wilkinson was powered by eight horses on a treadmill. The technology to propel the boat upstream was originally invented by David Grieve and granted a patent 24 February 1801 in the category of "Boats to ascend rivers". The complete recorded patent was lost in the 1836 U.S. Patent Office fire. The idea of propelling vessels by a mechanical screw in the water is now referred to a ...
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Chain Pump
The chain pump is type of a water pump in which several circular discs are positioned on an endless chain. One part of the chain dips into the water, and the chain runs through a tube, slightly bigger than the diameter of the discs. As the chain is drawn up the tube, water becomes trapped between the discs and is lifted to and discharged at the top. Chain pumps were used for centuries in the ancient Middle East, Europe, and China. In the Near East and Europe The earliest evidence for this device is in a Babylonian text from about 700 B.C. They were commonly powered by humans or animals. The device then appeared in ancient Egypt from about 200 B.C., featuring a pair of gear-wheels. A version of the chain pump was used in Ancient Greek and Roman, sometimes with pots, or scoops fixed to the chain, which, as they passed over the top pulley, tipped the water out; a 2nd century example is preserved in London. Philo of Byzantium wrote of such a device in the 2nd century B.C.; the histori ...
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Warwick
Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined with Leamington Spa and Whitnash. It has ancient origins and an array of historic buildings, notably from the Medieval, Stuart and Georgian eras. It was a major fortified settlement from the early Middle Ages, the most notable relic of this period being Warwick Castle, a major tourist attraction. Much was destroyed in the Great Fire of Warwick in 1694 and then rebuilt with fine 18th century buildings, such as the Collegiate Church of St Mary and the Shire Hall. The population was estimated at 37,267 at the 2021 Census. History Neolithic Human activity on the site dates back to the Neolithic, when it appears there was a sizable settlement on the Warwick hilltop. Artifacts found include more than 30 shallow pits containing early Neolithic flints and pottery an ...
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