Patent Pending Blog - Patents and the History of Technology

Roman Technology in Barbegal (Gaul) Flour Mill

The Roman culture in Gaul (modern France) built the largest flour milling operation that is known from ancient times, in about 300 AD.  Water was routed by aqueduct to the top of a bluff, and sent down two channels, with each channel powering 8 overshot waterwheels, for a total of 16 water wheels.  It is estimated that the "factory" could produce 4 tons of flour an hour, enough to feed 80,000 people.  Each waterwheel was 9 feet in diameter, and 3 feet wide, and generated about 2 hp.  The mill is located in Barbegal, 12 km north of Arles France. 

   

The images below are from The Stoa Image Gallery.  Stoa is an image database for scholars to share their digital images of classical sites.

The Ancient Greek Atomic Theory of Matter

In about 400 BC the Greek philosopher/scientist Democritus developed the theory that all matter was made of tiny units.  The different properties of matter were caused by interactions between the tiny units, such as whether they were smooth or rough.  Matter made of smooth units formed liquids, because the units could move around freely.   Matter made of units that stuck together formed metals and other solids. 

This theory was verified much later, when chemistry was again advanced in Europe in the 19th century AD.  In the 20th century it was clarified that the "hooks" theorized by the ancient Greeks were electrons.  Some atoms had their electrons available to hook onto other atoms, and some had their electrons sealed up so they could not interact.  How available they are to "hook up" determined how reactive an element is.  And like the Greeks theorized, liquids are made of particles that don't hook to their neighbors very well. 

The modern science of chemistry was started when John Dalton revived the ancient Greek theory in order to explain chemical observations. In 1808 he proposed that an element was componsed of tiny particles called atoms, with each atom of a certain element having the same properties as other atoms of the same element, and each atom being indivisible into smaller units.  Science today observes that atoms are practically indivisible, but under extreme conditions they can be broken into even smaller units.   Dalton's theory met fierce resistence by the scientific establishment, but gradually became a central theory of science.

Ancient Greek Science and the Round Earth

It was common knowledge to the ancient Greeks that the Earth was round.  In 205 BC, Eratosthones calcalated fairly accurately the circumference of the Earth.  He knew that at the time of the summer solstice a person could look into a well at Syene, and the bottom of the well would be in full sunlight.  On the same date and time, a pole in Alexandria cast a shadow at an angle of 7.2 degrees.  He concluded that the distance between Alexandria and Syene was thus 7.2/360, or one fiftieth the circumference of the Earth.  He calculated the distance between the two cities as 800 km, so the circumference of the Earth must be 50 times that, or 40,000 km.  He was way off, since the actual circumference is 40,075 km. 

The Invention of the Crank, The Crank Powered Bicycle

The crank is such a simple device that one could assume it is as ancient as the wheel.   The function of the crank was performed in the ancient world by handspikes which would be inserted in holes to move a capstan, and moved periodically to new holes aroung the cylinder of the capstan. 

In about the first century AD cranks were used on Roman medical devices, but it was not until 850 AD that proof of a crank in Europe is found, in a picture of a man sharpening a sword on a grindstone turned by a crank.  Other references show the crank in use in certain regions by about 1100 AD, and use in a variety of tools in Europe was widespreak by 1600 AD.  Of course, the Chinese had used the crank since 100 BC. 

The Frenchmen Pierre and Ernest Michaux added cranks and pedals to the existing form of the bicycle, by adding them to the front wheel in 1861.  Some people believe that this modification of the Dandy Horse makes the Michaux brothers the inventor of the bicycle.  However, the version made by John Starling was much closer to the modern version of the bicycle, and most people credit him with the invention of the modern form of the bicycle.  Other contenders for earliest bicycle invention include Kirkpatrick MacMillan in 1839.

The Michaux brothers partner was Pierre Lallement, who may also have been the original inventor or collaborator in the crank powered bicycle. Lallement immigrated to the U.S. and got a patent on his crank powered bicycle, which was the first U.S. patent on a bicycle, in 1866.   

Interchangable Parts

The first use of interchangeable parts in manufacturing was by a French artillery general, General Gribeauval.  He instituted interchageable parts to be used in cannon carriages for his army, in about 1765 I think.  I'll have to check that.  The tolerances for his carriage parts were fairly large, but parts of one gun carriage would fit another carriage, and complete carriage could be built up of stock parts.

 

Ball Bearings

A type of bearing was known in northern Europe in the days of Rome (100 bc) (Technology in the Ancient World, Henry Hodges, p 243).  The Goths and Vandals of that era were basically societies on wheels, and moved from place to place, as grazing availability, farmland, and population pressure dictated.  They used a type of wooden roller bearing on the wheels of their wagons, which were much advanced over the Roman wheel technology.

Leonardo de Vinci also designed bearings of various types.  In the culture that he worked in, he could not profit from disclosing his inventions, so he kept them secret, and used them only on commissioned works.  Thus, few of his inventions were put into practical use. 

The technology did not exist to mass produce ball bearings until the late 18th century.  Ball bearings were first patented by Philip Vaughan of England in 1794, for use on axles and wheels.  E.A. Cowper adapted the ball bearing for bicycle wheels, and soon ball bearings were also used in the cranks, pedals, and stem of bicycles.  When automobiles began being built, they borrowed heavily from the technological advances that were embodied in bicycle technology of the time. 

Ancient Persia's Qanat System

As early as 3000 BC, a system of irrigation began in Persia called the qanat, also spelled quanat.  This system is still active today, and has 170,000 miles of active underground canals in Iran alone, and supplies 75% of the water used in that country.  Quanats are underground tunnels, with a canal in the floor of the tunnel, which carries water.  At regular intervals, well-like openings extend from the surface to the tunnel floor, and it is through these openings that the tunnels were built and through which they are maintained.  The underground nature of the canal reduces evaporation in the hot and windy desert, and allows 22,000 quanats to operate in Iran today.  Many others exist within the sphere of the ancient Persian Empire, which included parts of Turkey, Afganistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and parts of the southern former U.S.S.R.  Quanats originate in highlands, with a mother shaft as deep as 400 meters, and the tunnel floor slopes at a gentle angle toward its destination, which can be 100 miles away. This aerial photo of Persipopolus, The Persian King Darius' capital, shows several quanat routes.  Below is the method of building a quanat. 

The difference between the quanat and a surface canal is that the quanat can get water from an underground aquifer, so a surface river or stream is not needed.  The quanat tunnel becomes humidified by the water, then further evaporation of water ceases.  Since it travels at a slope independent of the surface features, it can go in a straight line.  The water carrying canal in qanats were usually lined with stone or tile to reduce water loss. 

The Origin of Coffee and the Croissant

In 1683, the Ottoman army besieged the Austrian city of Vienna, as part of a steady push of conquest toward central Europe.  The vastly outnumbered Viennese fought valiantly, and held out against strong efforts to tunnel under the city walls and blow up the city gates with gunpowder.  Nearing desperation, and totally surrounded by Turkish forces, the Viennese sent a spy to penetreate the Turkish lines and reach the camp of Christian allied forces massed nearby.  A Pole with experience in Turkish culture, dress and speech, walked through the Turkish army camps, observed their number and disposition, and reached allied forces. 

With this inside information, the Polish forces, under John Sobieski, attacked, and defeated the Ottoman Turks under Kara Mustafa, and saved Vienna from the merciless slaughter that had been visited upon the rest of the countryside. The Turks left behind anything not essential to their flight, including 500 pounds of what was thought to be camel food.  As payment for his service, the Polish spy, Georg Kolschitzky accepted the camel food, which he knew was coffee from his experience in Istanbul.  With the coffee, he opened the first coffee shop in Vienna, and produced the first Viennese roast coffee. 

One colorful story is that the local bakers, working at night, heard the tunneling sounds of the Turks, and saved the city by alerting the defenders.  To celebrate the victory over the Turks, they created a special pastry in the shape of the symbol of the Turks, the cresent, which became the croissant.  This story is likely not correct, as most historians attribute the croissant to French creation no later than 1850.  WHATEVER!

Perpetual Motion Machine, or Hoax?

In 1717 in Saxony, a former watchmaker made a wheel that was self turning.  Built by Johann Bessler, also known as Orffyreus, one of these wheels was 5 feet in diameter, 6 inches wide, and turned by itself at 50 rpm.  It was hollow, and had a mechanism of rods and levers and pegs in the interior.  It was used to lift a 50 pound weight.  The wheel was started by a light push, and then became self turning. 

Modern physics theory holds that such a device is impossible, and countless inventors have failed to create such a device, but believers still debate the workings of the Bessler wheel.  The reason some credibility is given to the Bessler wheel is that it underwent an experiment under somewhat controlled conditions, and it was never proved a hoax, as were all other contenders in this field. 

As a test, a Bessler wheel of twelve feet diameter was assembled in a room in the castle of Count Karl of Hesse.  There it was examined by a committee of renowned doctors, professors of mechanics, and makers of mathematical instruments.  They verified that there was no external power source, and then gave the wheel a push, and watched it start up, and reach its 26 rpm.  They were not allowed by the inventor to inspect the inner workings of the hollow wheel, but verified that no external power source was driving the machine.  Then they left the empty room, locked the door, and sealed the lock with wax imprinted with each of their seals.  The room was left for 14 days, then opened by the same august committee.  Their wax seal was unbroken, and inside the room, the wheel was churning away at 26 rpm. 

 

The secret of the Bessler wheel was never discovered, and the inventor destroyed all prototypes and refused to disclose its inner workings.  The website besslerwheel.com is dedicated to the history and possible mode of operation of the Bessler wheel.

Leonardo's Diving Mask

Many inventors in ancient times worked on diving methods.  One was Leonardo DeVinci, who around 1500 designed a diving rig that would have worked if better materials had been available.  He used leather tubes lined with steel coils to prevent the tubes being crushed. 

  The tubes extend to a surface float, and air is drawn into the tubes by the divers breathing, with no pump being used.  This resulted in a very limited depth that the device would work in.  If a diver's lung capacity was 5 liters, if the tubing of his mask had much more than 2 liters capacity, he would not be able get a good breath of air. it doesn't take much tubing to have a capacity of 2, 3 and 4 liters.  So this device was definitely a shallow water device more akin to snorkeling than SCUBA.  One source thought the device was to help soldiers cross bodies of water, and it would work for that. 

Like most of Leonardo's ideas, this design was never published or actually built, and thus did not affect the development of science and technology of the times.