Win′now-ing-ma-chine′.
More often called a fanning-mill by those who use it, in this country. A machine in which grain, accompanied by chaff, dirt, cheat, cockle, grass-seeds, dust, straw, and other foul, either or all, is subjected to a shaking action on riddles and sieves in succession, the while an artificial blast of wind is driven against it on and through the sieves, and as it falls from one to another.We derive it from Britain, which obtained it from Holland in 1710. It was introduced into Scotland by Meikle, the father of that Meikle who invented thrashing-machines.
The English word is derived from the idea of making an artificial blast by means of a fan; and the specific mechanical purpose is to separate grain from chaff by a blast of wind acting upon the latter, which is lighter than the grain. The oldest representations that we have of the process of winnowing are in the Egyptian tombs, where men with scoops are throwing the grain up into the air, so that the passing wind may drive off the chaff. The shovel, the sieve, and the fan were the tools employed. “Clean provender which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.” — Isaiah XXX. 24. “Like as grain is sifted with a sieve.” — Amos IX 9. For this purpose, exposed situations on the tops of hills were chosen; and in the illustrations and Scripture references, it will be noticed that the tramping or thrashing was performed in the open air, contrary to our usual practice, but persevered in in the Eastern countries to this day. The climate in that part of the world is not so variable as our [2787] own; and while Palestine and Syria were blessed with the early and latter rain, yet the interval was dry, and full dependence could be placed on the state of the weather. In Upper Egypt, rain was and is a rarity, as we learn from Herodotus, the father of history, and from modern geographers. In Lower Egypt, as the Mediterranean, the climate is more moist, as might be expected from its vicinity to so large a body of water.
We do not know at how early a date artificial devices were made use of to create a draft of air, but it was in the remote past, and the Scripture references are frequent. “His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor” ; that is, cleanse or clean, by separating foreign and useless matters; the fan is still used for this purpose in several forms. In some Eastern countries, the ordinary fan, on a large scale, is held in the hand, and made efficacious in blowing away the chaff as it and the grain descend from a riddle held aloft and shaken by another man. The writer still recollects one form in which the bars of a revolving reel were furnished with cloths and rotated by a hand-crank, the concern being six or seven feet long and having its bearings in posts of a frame standing upon the barn floor. It is among the histories of the machine that when it was introduced in Scotland, certain sensitive persons pronounced it an impious device, as “it raised a wind when the Lord had made a calm” This is another inflection of the old opposition that met Kepler and Galileo.
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| Winnowing in Egypt (1500 B. C.） |
Fig. 7259 illustrates a machine, still in use, invented by Gooch of Northampton, England, in 1800. It embraces the important features of the more modern machines: the rotating fan, the shaking-riddle, and sieves for sorting the grain and separating extraneous matters. See also fanning-mill.
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| English winnowing-machine. |
