Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1891-03-13
MAKING FLOUR.
CHANGING WHEAT INTO TIE
FLAKY WHITE POWDER.
Taking Out the Grains Impurities
Magnets Work-The Wheats
Long Journey Before
1t Becomes Flour.

A modern 1000 barrels per day mill is
o marvel of ingenuity, rumbling day and
night from cellar to garnet with a hun
dred and ono clever machines, all of
which are necessary in the manufacture
ing of barrel of flour.
Trailing our way by long, winding
flights of stairs, through the semi-twi.
light rooms, alive with the nois. and
rumble of the mysterious machines, belts,
bands and bobbins, shafts and elevators,
We como at last to the fifth story, under
the roof. Adjoining tho grain elevator,
this room is connected by a special
wooden flue to the separator-the first
one-therc are more than one-several in
fact. The first separator is huge con-
glomeration of sleeves, bolts and bands
and sings hoarse, cultural melody as it
handles its 1000 bushels of wheat per
hour.
The impurities taken out by the first
separators arc of the coarsest kind sticks,
twigs, straws, Jumps of mud, etc.-all
dropping In large box at one side.
To the inexperienced eye the wheat is
now clean, and, withal, extremely beauti-
full, as it runs, n stream of yellow gold,
down to the machinery below, roaring
away for their prey. Yet the wheat is
far from clean.
The next separator is q simple looking
Arrangement, in which the rain comes
pouring down spout into broad
trough; this trough Is connected with al
inclined surface, eleven feet wide. A
large fiat magnet about three feet and
Sin inches wide lies directly in the path
OF the grain, as the latter tumblcs head
long into hopper below. With the in
genuity of life itself, this magnet seizes
and holds all particles of iron, bits of
wic from the binders, scraps of naiis,
etc., in short, all metals holding them
fast while the clean wheat pours into the
hopper below. A leather belt, attached
to which is tin scraper, passes slowly
over the magnet, gathering together and
brushing before it the collected bits of
metal, the whole being passed into n
box at one side.
From the magnet the wheat is led by
trough il.o q receptacle looking like n
largo barrel, revolving about which is n
cylindrical drum of lead. The drum is
open on either side, the sides of the
cylinder being composed of series of
leadcn grooves. The cylinder constantly
revolves. and rs it docs SO, the mass OF
wheat in the receiver just inside is, of
course, constantly stirred up. Gradually
the little cookies in the whent are turned
to the bottom. In n trice they fall into
the leaden grooves and are borne outside
the protecting edge of the receiver. These
lcadcn grooves, it should be added, arc
only large enough to allow the introduc-
ton and passage of cookies, no wheat
being able to escape. AS the cylinder
revolves, the cookies are thrown into
receivcr-and the golden grain pours
down through an opening in the floor,
to the roaring machinery below.
Down through the floor goes the golden
shower, to great, rumbling machine, in
dark corner of the twilight room, the
latter filled with an endless array of noisy
wheels, shafts and belts. The wheat is
now to be secured; and never before did
maid or housewife have set before her n
moro difficult task in the line of cleaning
or OF securing. Imagine n machine de-
licatc and yet swift enough to seize one
by one the millions and millions of wheat
kernels as they come pouring into bar
rel-lilte receiver, seize them, hold them,
polish them, until even those microsco
pic "whiskers" (as the mllcrs say) that
adorn either end Of the grain is removed
Yet such is the process now in hand.
Small need of saying that the big ma
chine rumbling away before us is dainty
and delicate in interior construction,
that its interior is lined with grand ar
ray oil sieves, screeners, etc.. small need
OF any such gencralities; the point is that
the wheat comes rumbling and tumbling
into the receiver, bushel on bushel, and
that somehow, through the agency of
the belts, bands and bobbins, through
the aid of steam and suction power, Ihaf-
ing, blowing and tanning, the object is
finally accomplished-and it passes on
into still one more cleaner 1the LAST
where it is brushed and secured until
each kernel is as radiant as GLOWING
gold.
And now the work of, -four making
begins in real earnest. Tic first process
is splitting the grain in two or moro
parts, supplementary to the grinding.
This is done by passing the wheat be-
tween two chilled iron rolls, these crush
ing the grain to nicety-not kernel
escaping the process. This is to loosen
preparatory to taking out what is known,
technically, as the "crease dirt"-that
fine line of dirt found in the crease of the
wheat. Passing from this machine, the
wheat is introduced into wooden flue,
or elevator, as it is called, the bottom of
which is armed with fine wire or cloth
mattings through tho interstices OF
which is allowed to pass and collect the
first particles of flour that may chance in
the violent down-rushing of the grain, to
become loosened by friction. This i.
the first OF the flour. A distinction is
here made between flour and middlines
All middlings will make flour, but al
flour will not make middlings. The lat.
ter is the intermediate, the finest pro-
duct Of the mill-the entire output be.
ing flour, middlings and bran.