A ship mill, more commonly known as a boat mill, is a type of watermill. The milling and grinding technology and the drive (waterwheel) are built on a floating platform on this type of mill. [1] Its first recorded use dates back to mid-6th century AD Italy. [2]
Between barge and boat well is the undershot water wheel, which is driven by the flowing water of the current. There is also evidence of water mills for which both sides had a narrower water wheel, similar to an old paddle steamer. The floating platform is anchored at the most intense point in the current, to the bridge piers for easy access to the mill, or to the shore.
Floating allows the mill to operate with the same power despite changing water levels. The efficiency of the mill can at best match a standard undershot mill. Ship mills could potentially run full-time, good for tasks that demanded constant power.
Ship mills could be drawn to shore (due to shipping, rafting, ice) when needed. In central Europe ship mills were, as most water and wind mills, owned by lords or monasteries. Ship mills in Central Europe have not remained; after the advent of riverboat traffic, they became a hindrance. Ship mills last about fifty years.
In the 537 siege of Rome, supplies were interrupted by the Goths from providing the population with vital flour from the surrounding water mills. Also, the aqueducts that supplied Rome with water and some cities which had water-driven mills could no longer work. The solution devised by the Eastern Roman general Belisarius was the "reverse principle of a water mill" - the ship mills, which were anchored on the Tiber river around Rome. [2]
It was a type of watermill powered by water wheels mounted on the sides of vessels moored in midstream, preferably close to bridges where the current is stronger. From then on, the ship mill spread to Europe, reaching Paris (556), Geneva (563) and Dijon (c. 575). [3]
Ship mills were developed in the Islamic world some time between the 8th and 10th centuries. [4] They were employed along the Tigris at Mosul in 10th-century Iraq, where large ship mills made of wood and iron could produce 10 tons of flour from corn daily for the granary in Baghdad. [5] In 1184, Ibn Jubayr described ship mills in the same region on the Khabur River. [5] From the lack of records, it appears that they did not spread further to Iran. [6]
From the late 10th century onwards, there was an expansion of milling in Northern Europe. [4] Since then, ship mills were common in much of Europe until the 19th century, with a few of them surviving today. [7]
The German terms "Schiffsmühle" or "Schiffmühle" are used according to local language preferences.
Ship mills were used on most major rivers in Europe.
There are some replicas of ship mills:
There are also ship mills on land, as monuments:
Hydropower, also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by converting the gravitational potential or kinetic energy of a water source to produce power. Hydropower is a method of sustainable energy production. Hydropower is now used principally for hydroelectric power generation, and is also applied as one half of an energy storage system known as pumped-storage hydroelectricity.
Vienna is the capital, most populous city, and one of nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. Its larger metropolitan area has a population of nearly 2.9 million, representing nearly one-third of the country's population. Vienna is the cultural, economic, and political center of the country, the fifth-largest city by population in the European Union, and the most-populous of the cities on the Danube river.
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, and wire drawing mills.
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving car. Water wheels were still in commercial use well into the 20th century, but they are no longer in common use today. Uses included milling flour in gristmills, grinding wood into pulp for papermaking, hammering wrought iron, machining, ore crushing and pounding fibre for use in the manufacture of cloth.
A noria is a hydropowered scoop wheel used to lift water into a small aqueduct, either for the purpose of irrigation or to supply water to cities and villages.
Haxted Watermill is a much-restored Grade II listed watermill in Surrey, England, close to the border with Kent, and is powered by the River Eden.
The Mur or Mura is a river in Central Europe rising in the Hohe Tauern national park of the Central Eastern Alps in Austria with its source at 1,898 m (6,227 ft) above sea level. It is a tributary of the Drava and subsequently the Danube.
A millwright is a craftsman or skilled tradesman who installs, dismantles, maintains, repairs, reassembles, and moves machinery in factories, power plants, and construction sites.
The districts of Vienna are the 23 named city sections of Vienna, Austria, which are numbered for easy reference. They were created from 1850 onwards, when the city area was enlarged by the inclusion of surrounding communities. Although they fill a similar role, Vienna's municipal districts are not administrative districts (Bezirke) as defined by the federal constitution; Vienna is a statutory city and as such is a single administrative district in its entirety.
Donaustadt is the 22nd district of Vienna, Austria . Donaustadt is the eastern district of Vienna.
Donau-Auen National Park covers 93 square kilometres in Vienna and Lower Austria and is one of the largest remaining floodplains of the Danube in Middle Europe.
The ancient Romans were famous for their advanced engineering accomplishments. Technology for bringing running water into cities was developed in the east, but transformed by the Romans into a technology inconceivable in Greece. The architecture used in Rome was strongly influenced by Greek and Etruscan sources.
A tide mill is a water mill driven by tidal rise and fall. A dam with a sluice is created across a suitable tidal inlet, or a section of river estuary is made into a reservoir. As the tide comes in, it enters the mill pond through a one-way gate, and this gate closes automatically when the tide begins to fall. When the tide is low enough, the stored water can be released to turn a water wheel.
Letheringsett watermill is situated on the River Glaven in the village of Letheringsett within the English county of Norfolk. Letheringsett is in the district of North Norfolk and is 1.4 miles (2.3 km) west of the town of Holt. The watermill is a Grade II* listed building and is the last fully operational watermill in Norfolk that produces flour. See inside and explore the watermill here
The Hierapolis sawmill was a water-powered stone sawmill in the Ancient Greek city of Hierapolis in Roman Asia. Dating to the second half of the 3rd century AD, the sawmill is considered the earliest known machine to combine a crank with a connecting rod to form a crank-slider mechanism.
The International Wind- and Watermill Museum, at Gifhorn in the German state of Lower Saxony, is the only one of its kind in Europe. On the museum's open-air site, which covers an area of around 16 hectares, there are currently 16 mills from 12 different countries. The mills are either original or faithful reproductions and are set in landscapes typical of their origins. Right across the site are historic artefacts associated with mills and the milling industry. The museum site is easily accessed by road; nearby is the intersection between the B 4 and B 188 federal highways. The museum is station 65 on the Lower Saxon Mill Road.
A gristmill grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separated from its chaff in preparation for grinding.
