NEW-INVENTED MACHINES OR WIRE CYLINDERS FOR DRESSING WHEAT, BARLEY, AND OTHER GRAIN BEFORE GROUND, AND ALSO FOR DRESSING FLOUR FROM WHEAT, BARLEY, & OTHER GRAIN, WHICH ARE SO CONTRI AS TO BE WORKED BY STRAPS OR GEERS, AND USED IN WIND OR WATER MILLS, OR WORKED BY HAND, &C. RESREOF
Year: 1770

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
MILNE, of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, Wireworker, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Maty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Thirteenth day of October, in the tenth year of His said
Majesty's reign, did give and grant unto me, the said John Milne, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, His special licence, full power, sole
priviledge & authority, that I, the said John Milne, my executors, admors,
and assigns, and every of them, by himself and themselves, or by mine or
their deputy or deputies, servants or agents, or such others as I, the said John
Milne, my executors, adñors, and assigns, shall at any time agree with, and
no others, from time to time and at all times hereafter during the term of years
therein expressed, make, use, exercise, and vend, within that part of His
Majesty's Kingdom of Great Britain called England, His Dominion of Wales,
and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also within His Colonies and Plan-
tations abroad, my "NEW-INVENTED MACHINES OR WIRE CYLINDERS FOR DRESSING
WHEAT, BARLEY, AND OTHER GRAIN BEFORE GROUND, AND ALSO FOR DRESSING FLOUR
FROM WHEAT, BARLEY, & OTHER GRAIN, WHICH ARE SO CONTRIVED AS TO BE WORKED
BY STRAPS OR GEERS, AND USED IN WIND OR WATER MILLS, OR WORKED BY
HAND, &C.; AND THOSE FOR FLOUR WILL MAKE A MORE LIVELY AND BETTER FLOUR
FROM THE SAME GRAIN THAN CAN BE MADE BY BOLTING CLOTHS, THE COMMON METHOD
USED FOR DRESSING THEREOF; THAT THE SAID MACHINES ARE SO CONTRIVED THAT

page_text: ONE, TWO, OR THREE DIFFERENT SORTS OF FLOUR MAY BE MADE AT ONE OPERATION
BY MOVING THE PARTITIONS WHICH DIVIDE THE FLOUR WITHIN THE BOX OR CASE
IN WHICH THE MACHINE WORKS; AND ALSO FOR THE SOLE MAKING, USING, EXERCISING
AND VENDING THE WIREWORK FOR RENEWING AND REPAIRING THE SAID MACHINES
OR WIRE CYLINDERS DURING THE TERM OF YEARS EXPRESSED IN THE SAID LETTERS
PATENT;" in which said recited Letters Patent is contained a proviso obliging
me, the said John Milne, by writing under my hand and seal, to cause a par-
ticular description of the nature of my said Invention to be inrolled in His
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within four calendar months after the date
of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation being
thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
John Milne, do hereby declare that my said Inventions are composed and
made in the manner and according to the plans, models, or forms following;
viz*:-
Fig. 1. Hereunder is a representation of the form of the cylinder or
machine for dressing the flour of wheat, barley, &c. The cylinder is generally
about six feet long, and about sixteen inchos diameter within, but may be-and
hath been made of different lengths and diameters, upon the inside of whichi
cylinder is fixed sometimes wirework, and sometimes cloth, made of such
different degrees of fineness as is proper to dress all sorts of flour, and divide
the sharps from the pollards, and the pollards from the bran, at one operation;
through the center of which cylinder is put a shaft or spindle of wood, iron, or
other metal, upon which shaft or spindle are fixed brushes, sometimes streiglit,
that is, parallel with the shaft or spindle, and sometimes crooked, and in the
form of a screw or worm, at such a distance from the center as will touch the
inside of the wirework or cloth of which the cylinder is composed, and wlien in
motion will form a circle of as large a diameter as the diameter of the inside
of the cylinder, and consequently brush or rub upon the inside of the cylinder
aforesaid. Both ends of the shaft or spindle are made proper axis for the shaft s
or spindle and brushes to turn round upon; and (as these machines are conve-
nient for either water mills, windmills, or to be turned by hand &c., and will be
conveniently turned by either straps, ropes, or geers, &c.), one end of the shaft or
spindle is made proper to receive such sort of power as is most convenient to
the person that is to work it, whether it be strap, rope, or geer, &c. The 3
cylinder being fixed in a box, &c., where it is intended to act sometimes in an
oblique or slanting position, and sometimes in an horizontal position, and the
power given by which it is to move, the shaft or spindle and brushes turn
round, and the cylinder stands still, and sometimes the cylinder has a circular

page_text: motion given it also. When the machine is in motion, as is said before, the
flour, &c. which it is to dress is conveyed into that end of the cylinder which has
the finest wirework or cloth upon it, where, by the motion of the shaft or
spindle, &c., it is immediately put into a circular motion, or rather into the form
of a screw or spiral line, which continues so long as it remains in the cylinder,
which continuance is in proportion to the size of the particles of flour, &c., and
in proportion to the fineness of the wirework or cloth; for the bran stays in
the whole length of the cylinder, and comes out at the other end; and the
number of threads in this imaginary screw or spiral line, or the number of
revolutions, is more or less as the motion is quicker or slower.
And as the
position of the machine is more or less inclined towards a perpendicular, so the
finest flour comes out first where the finest work is, and afterwards coarser
where coarser work is, and so on; and, last of all, the bran, being particles
too large to pass through any part of the wirework, &c., naturally comes out
at the other end of the cylinder, as aforesaid.
Fig. 2 represents the cylindrical part of the machine (Fig. 1), bisected or
divided into two parts, which will be semicylinders, each of which are con
venient for small mills, or for dressing sinall parcels of meal or flour, which
are generally about six feet long, and about sixteen inches diameter, but some
are longer and some shorter, and some of greater diameters and some less.
These work in an oblique position, and are sometimes placed under the mill
eye, and dress the flour of wheat, barley, or any other grain, as the mill
grinds; and they are sometimes placed in other convenient parts of the mill
and fed by a hopper in the same manner as a common dressing mill. Upon
the inside of this semicylindrical machine there is wirework fixed, of different
degrees of fineness proper for dressing fine flour, seconds, and thirds, fine pol-
lard, coarse pollard, and bran, or they will make two sorts of flour, or only one
sort, by moving the partitions which are under the machine, just as the person
pleases who attends it. And the inside of these machines are sometimes com-
posed of cloth made of hair or yarn, &c., instead of wirework. A little above
the machine there is a shaft, as (a, a,) of wood or iron, &c., placed in the same.
position as the machine, upon which shaft there is fixed two gudgeons or axis,
upon which axis the machine is hanged by its top and bottom centers, as
at (b, b); and on the same shaft there is brushes (7, 8, &c.) fixed in a circular
form similar to the form of the machine, and in such a manner that the points
of the brushes touch the inside of the machine, and there is a piece of iron, &c:
in a triangular form, as (c, d, and e), and e is fixed fast to one side of the
semicylinder, and d to the other side, and the end e stands erect above the

page_text: shaft, and there is an horizontal piece of wood or iron, &c., as (f. g), and the
end f has a round hole in it, through which the end e is put; and the hole
must be a little larger than the end e, in order that it may move easy when it
works, and there is also a hole through the other end of the horizontal piece
at g, a little larger than the thickness of the crank i, and when it is set to
work, the power by which it is to move (whether it be by water or wind, &c.)
turns the crank i; and when i is at L, then e will be at 3, and that part of the
machine' will be at 5; and when the crank i is at 2, then e will be at 4, and]
that part of the machine k will be at 6; consequently it will have an alternate
motion backwards and forwards. And the meal, &c. which is to be dressed is
conveyed in at the upper part of the machine, which, by means of the motion
aforesaid, and by the friction of the brushes, the flour, &c. is dressed through
the upper part of the machine, and the pollard, &c. through the lower part,
and the bran comes out at the bottom end.
The machines described above, which are represented hereunder by Fig. 1
and Fig. 2, will dress the flour or the meal of wheat, barley, oats, or any other
sort of grain; but the machine which is hereunder represented by Fig. 3 is
what I have invented, and calculated more particularly for the dressing of the
flour or the meal of oats and barley, especially the first, which is commonly
called oatmeal. a, a, a, a, are four posts of wood, &c., about six feet long;
each of which stands erect at about three feet from each other, which forms a
square frame of about three feet within, which frame is put together with
pieces of wood, &c., which reaches from post to post, as b, b, &c. c, c, &c. are
the four upright parts of a frame of thin iron, &c., which stand at right angles
from each other, which is about twenty-six inches diameter. 1, 2, 3, are
sieves made of wire, hair, wood, parchment, iron, brass, or tin, &c., which are
the same diameter as the iron frame, viz, about twenty-six inches, to the
inside of which frame they are fixed in such a manner that the plane of the
sieves are horizontal. d, d, d, are three cones of tin, &c., which convey the meal
from one sieve to another; and the top diameters of the cones are about the same
as the diameters of the under side of the sieves, to which places they are fixed,
and there is a round hole at the bottom of each cone, of a sufficient size to let
all the meal pass from one sieve to another. e is a small hopper fixed in the
center of the top of the iron frame, into which the meal that is to be dressed
is conveyed; f is another small hopper through which the dressed meal passes
when finished, and is received under by sacks &c.; 9, 9, is an axis of iron &c.,
which passes through the centers of all the seives and both hoppers, at the top
of which, at H, there is a crank, and there is another crank of the same radius

page_text: at the bottom of the spindle, within the hopper f; and at the bottom and
center of the hopper f there is a center hole for the top crank to turn round
in, and there is two center holes for the top crank to turn round in, one in
the piece i, and one in the piece j, betwixt which there is a pulley k, which, by
means of a rope &c., it is turned by the pulley 1, and when it is set to work, the
seives, frame, and hoppers (being all fast together) have a motion according
to the size of the crank. And in order to prevent the machine, viz', the seives
and frame, &c., from turning round with the spindle or axis, or, which is the
same thing, to confine the machine so that each side shall always be or point
towards the same place, there is a guider m, n, and the end m is fixed fast to
the top of the machine, with two screws and nuts, and the end n slidės easy
through a hole at n, and hath an alternate motion from a to y, and from y to
x, according to the diameter of the crank H; and the meal which is to be
dressed is conveyed into the hopper e, which carries it to the center of the first
suive, which, by means of the motion aforesaid (which is pretty much the
same as the motion of a seive when a person is sifting by hand), the shudes
naturally rise and flow over the sides of the seive, and fall upon the bottom of
the frame a, a, a, a, which bottom is made a slope with boards. to carry: the
shudes to some convenient part; and the meal passes through the first seive,
and is, by means of the cone d, conveyed to the center of the second sieve,.
where it is sifted in the same manner, and the shudes flow over the sides of
the rim in the same form, and then the meal passes through the second cone
to the center of the third sieve, where it goes through the same operation as
in the other two. And last of all, the finished meal passes through the third
cone and the hopper f, and is received under by sacks, &c.
Fig. 4 is the form or representation of the machine for dressing wheat,
barley, or any other sort of grain, which is the same in nature as the machine
for dressing the flour of wheat, barley, &c., represented by (Fig. 1), only there
is sometimes tin punched full of holes, as well as wirework, nailed to the
inside of the cylinder; and the wirework is made stronger and coarser in
proportion to the nature of the work it has to do, and the brushes are very
stiff and strong, in order to break, destroy, and throw out the smuts, seeds,
and dirt, &c., and likewise in order to brush and rub the corn well, for it is an
advantage to sound corn to pass through a deal of friction. There is also
another difference betwixt the flour machine (Fig. 1) and this machine; viz³,
that which is dressed through the wirework, &c. in the flour machine, is the
best of the stuff, viz, flour, and the bran runs out at the bottom end; but
that which is dressed through the wirework, &c. in this machine is only

page_text: small corn, seeds, and dirt, &c., which is worth little, and the pure corn runs
out at the bottom end.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Milne, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this First day of February, in the year of our Lord Onc
thousand seven hundred and seventy-one.
AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the same First day of February,
in the year last above mentioned, the aforesaid John Milne came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according
to the tenor of the Statute made in the sixth year of the reign of the late.
King and Queen William and Mary of England, and so forth.