Wind Mill

by Joseph Hollingsworth

Title

Wind Mill

Artist

Joseph Hollingsworth

Medium

Photograph - Digital

Description

While this is non-functioning wind mill in Solvang California I fine the aesthetics and the history fascinating.
Since ancient times, man has harnessed the power of the wind to provide motive power for transportation. Likewise, the technique of grinding grain between stones to produce flour is similarly ancient, and widespread. Quite where and when these two came together in the first windmill is unknown, but a likely scenario suggests a Persian origin, from where (tradition has it) the knowledge spread back into Northern Europe as a result of the Crusades. However, since the Persian mills were quite unlike the early European designs it seems just as likely that the adaptation of wind as a power source was independently discovered in Europe, albeit at a later date. (Of course wind was not the first non-human power source applied to the task of grinding corn - it was preceeded by both animal power, and in all probability by water power).
European millwrights became highly skilled craftsmen, developing the technology tremendously, and as Europeans set off colonizing the rest of the globe, windmills spread throughout the world.

The pinnacles of windmill design include those built by the British, who developed many advanced "automatic control" mechanisms over the centuries, and the Dutch (who used windmills extensively to pump water and for industrial uses, as well as to grind grain).

As steam power developed, the uncertain power of the wind became less and less economic, and we are left today with a tiny fraction of the elegant structures that once extracted power from the wind. These remaining windmills, scattered throughout the world, are a historic, and certainly very photogenic, reminder of a past technological age. A number of mills have been restored, either visually, or in some cases back to full working order, where the trend for organic and non-manufactured foodstuffs has shifted the economics slightly back in their favour once again.

However the promise of widespread power from the wind lives on, both in the form of wind turbines producing electricity, and in the form of small scale windpumps (often largely low-tech "appropriate technology" installations) still used extensively in world agriculture.

Uploaded

June 29th, 2015

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