Mill pond

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Hagley mill pond on Brandywine Creek in Delaware which fed the mill race powering the gunpowder mills owned by DuPont, historical armaments supplier in the U.S. Hagley mill race.JPG
Hagley mill pond on Brandywine Creek in Delaware which fed the mill race powering the gunpowder mills owned by DuPont, historical armaments supplier in the U.S.

A mill pond (or millpond) is a body of water used as a reservoir for a water-powered mill. [1] [2]

Contents

Description

Mill ponds were often created through the construction of a mill dam or weir (and mill stream) across a waterway.

In many places, the common proper name Mill Pond has remained even though the mill has long since gone. It may be fed by a man-made stream, [3] known by several terms including leat and mill stream. The channel or stream leading from the mill pond is the mill race, which together with weirs, dams, channels and the terrain establishing the mill pond, delivers water to the mill wheel to convert potential and/or kinetic energy of the water to mechanical energy by rotating the mill wheel. The production of mechanical power is the purpose of this civil engineering hydraulic system.

The term mill pond is often used colloquially and in literature to refer to a very flat body of water. [2] Witnesses of the loss of RMS Titanic reported that the sea was "like a mill pond". [2] [4]

Panorama of Cromford mill pond at Cromford, Derbyshire, England Cromford mill pond.jpg
Panorama of Cromford mill pond at Cromford, Derbyshire, England

Footnotes and references

Footnotes

  1. Random House Dictionary (1640–1650). "Mill pond at Dictionary.com" . Retrieved 7 September 2013. mill·pond [mil-pond] noun 1. a pond for supplying water to drive a mill wheel. Origin: 1640–50; mill1 + pond
  2. 1 2 3 World English Dictionary. "Mill pond at Dictionary.com" (Collins English Dictionary 10th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved 7 September 2013. millpond (ˈmɪlˌpɒnd)— n 1. a pool formed by damming a stream to provide water to turn a millwheel 2. any expanse of calm water: the sea was a millpond
  3. World English Dictionary (1640). "Leat at Dictionary.com" (Collins English Dictionary 10th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved 7 September 2013. leat (liːt) — n ( Brit ) 1. a trench or ditch that conveys water to a mill wheel [Old English -gelǣt (as in wætergelǣt water channel), from let 1 ]
  4. Ruth Becker Archived 2011-08-31 at the Wayback Machine Titanic witness

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A leat is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond. Other common uses for leats include delivery of water for hydraulic mining and mineral concentration, for irrigation, to serve a dye works or other industrial plant, and provision of drinking water to a farm or household or as a catchment cut-off to improve the yield of a reservoir.

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A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. 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. These watermills may comprise gristmills, sawmills, paper mills, textile mills, hammermills, trip hammering mills, rolling mills, wire drawing mills.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weir</span> Artificial river barrier

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References