Note 21 — Chapter IX

I was likewise shown a more complicated machine, invented by one of the workmen at the English Consul’s dairy. A perpendicular axis, passing through the floor of the ceiling, and set in motion by a wheel in an upper room or underneath, had a certain number of stout cogs projecting from it horizontally, but wedge-shaped, so that the edge which takes the end of the hammer handle is sharp at first, and grows broader; consequently, as it passes round, will press down the short end of the hammer: and, as the idea was ingenious for such poor machinists as the Egyptians, I made a sketch of it. Thus one yoke of oxen might set to work eight or ten pestles, and much room be saved.