Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1852-08-19
Flour Manufacturing at the
West.

W6SC.
New England men generally, and Massa-
chusetts men in particular, have very good
idea OF the magnitude of cotton and woolen
manufacturing corporations, aud The amount
Of their production, but very few who have
never been west Of the Hudson river, in the
State Of New York, have any definie idea
of the extent of -four manufacture in such
localities as Oswego, Rochester, or Black
Rock, near Buffalo. The enormou US brick
structures for manufacturing purposes, at
Lawrence, Lowell, and Manchester, are
very well understood, bul cyclopian pile of
stone nine stories high, erected for the sole
purpose OF storing and grinding wheat, is
seldom thought Of. Take the city of Roch-
ester alone, where some thirty mills are just
now commencing their fall operations on
the rlch wheat crop of the Genesee valley.
consuming each from four hundred to three
thousand bushels of wheat per Gay. and
pouring lie results IN the shape of wheat
flour into the commercial laps of the eastern
cities, from whence il is disseminated IN life
sustaining currents not only through the
manufacturing districts of New England. but
through n large proportion OF the whole
commercial world. A large Touring mill
requires an Immense propelling power, but
employs very few hands in proportion 10 the
amount OF business done, compared with
either cotton or wooden mill. The grain
literally goes through the mills, and comes
out flour, without the intervention OF a hu-
man hand. lew men experimenting and
controlling the powerful machinery, and
guiding The operations, are all that are re-
CURED. They fit about apparently careless
and unconcerned among huge wheels in
swift revolution, which by one nlissr ep would
crush them as inevitably as foot fall would
crush worm.
canal boat load of wheat is moored i'm
the basin beside one of these mills. sys-
tenn OF elevation is let down consisting Of a
series of sheet iron hnckeis riveted upon q
broad common leatIiern belt, passing be-
tween two pulleys, one in the weighing room
OF the mill, and the other resting near the
wheat IN bulk in the hold Of the boat Four
men with scoops Immediately commence
shovellng The grain into the ascending buck
cts, which as they reach the upper pulley
! and reverse their direction in the descend
ing line, spill their contents into the neigh
boring scale pan. When this is filed and
weighed it is passed down by trap in the
bottom of the pan into the bin below, whence
1t is again elevated into the attic and depos-
tied III horizontal trough running the whole
length of The mill. Within this trough re-
wolves screw shaft, which carries along the
grain and drops it at any required point, by
means of sliding gates in the bottom of The
trough, through which Ihe wheat drops if
any one of The series is left open. From this
lofty elevation il passes into the smut beat
er> aud blowers, thence through the chess
and cookie screens down again 10 the ground
floor into the hopper of the grinding stones,
where the grain is cracked into COM
mingled mass OF -four, middlings, shorts, and
bran. But this bruised mass of what was
once beautiful wheat, hes not reached its
lowest point ofdescent yet; tor
L" In this lowest depth lower deep,
Still gaping to receive it opens wide,'
and il falls from the stones into the cellar of
the mill whence il is again re elevated to
one OF Tie upper stories and deposited on the
floor Of a huge room called Tie cooling room
where il is stirred by lhe long aims fixed at
right angles in an upright shaft. The
ground wheat as il comes from the stones is
very hot from the severe friction and crush
ing it has undergone, and il is deposited in
The cooling room, near the wall in a large
and continual Stream from half dozen sets
Of mill stones. By The operation of the ma
chinery in Ihis room the ground wheat is
ml0e graCuallY 10 dpprOnciI the centre under
Il continual stirring process, and there drops
through a Trap INFO The boiling chest, in
which revnlve half Il dozen long cylinders,
covered with cloth of the most beautiful tex.
ture imaginable. These boiling cylinders
are inclined one way or the other, and the
contents gradually work along from the finer
into the coarser bolts, that which remains
growing less and less in quantity, until the
refuse bran is finally poured out of the end
of the last bolt. The various qualities of
! -four, &c, drop from these bolts into the
packing Tins OF the floor, ready to be bar.
relied for the market.
| All this is done, as we have said, by ma
chnery, almos! without The intervention ofn
human hand, and is. besi 'es, a very quick
process. Wheat which lays in bulk 10 the
hold OF boat to-day, may be on its way to
New York or Boston tomorrow. We have
in this city TWO mills in which this operation
is performed, but we must 60 west Of the
Hudson if we would see The manufacture Of
flour OH large scale. We never expect 10
see the time when hork of sheep will be
passed through the mill and come out rnut-
ton. dressed ready for The market, and cloth
ready for The tailor. We never expect to
see the cotton plant turn out woven fabrics
without the Intervention of pickers, cotton
gins and looms, with the thousand hands
necessary for their attendance but in the
manufacture of -four, we do see now manual
labor comparatively superseded by machin-
cry, which is the result of human ingenuity
and skl-Bos. Journal.