Читать книгу Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys - Joseph H. Adams - Страница 31

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From the time of the earliest habitation of the earth, nature’s great forces, wind and water, have been employed to furnish power for man’s uses. Wind engines and mills for motive power have become almost obsolete in and about the great cities, as they are so cumbersome and uncertain, but in the country they are still used to a great extent for pumping water, milling, and operating light machinery.

Windmills have been made in a number of shapes by the people of different nations, and some of them are very picturesque, especially the Dutch wheels and those made in the eastern part of the United States a century or more ago, many of which are still working.

Windmills will never go out of use entirely, no matter what cheap motive power will eventually run the world; for when they are once set up properly they cost nothing to operate, and if a wheel is well made it will last for years with but trifling cost for repairs.

Windmills, weather-vanes, pinion-wheels, and wind toys of all descriptions have been made by boys in every age, and each generation goes on to invent or think of something new for the same old wind to play with that has toyed with the world’s wheels for centuries. The illustrations and descriptions on this and the following pages will be found helpful in the construction of wind machinery that shall be both novel and practicable.