FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   >>  
uch machines as are wrought by lever pressure. We pass on, therefore, to later inventions and improvements. First, The Dutch or _stamper_ press, invented in Holland; second, the _screw_; and, third, the _hydraulic_:-- (1.) _The stamper press_ is something like a beetling-machine, in which wedges are driven in between the bags, containing, of course in a bruised condition, the seed to be pressed. (2.) _The screw press_ has an ordinary square-threaded screw, and it acts in the same way as press for making cider or cheese. (3.) _The hydraulic press_. Here the pressure is produced by means of a piston driven up by the force of water, the immense power of which is, in great part, due to its almost total incompressibility. This is by far the most perfect form of press. Its power must be familiar to all who remember the lifting of the tubes of the Britannia Bridge, and the _launching of the Great Eastern_. An oil-mill is in form something like a flour-mill. The operation begins at the top, where the seed is passed through a flat screw or shaker and then through a pair of rollers, which crush it. These rollers are of unequal diameter, the one being 4 feet, and the other 1 foot; but they are both of the same length, 1 foot 4 inches, and make fifty-six revolutions in a minute. By this arrangement it is found the seed is both better bruised and faster than when, as was formerly the case, the rollers were of the same diameter. A pair of rollers will crush 4-1/2 tons of seed in eleven hours, a quantity enough to keep two sets of hydraulic presses going. After the seed is crushed in this way, it is passed under a pair of edge stones. These stones weigh about seven tons, are 7 feet 6 inches in diameter and 17 inches broad, and make seventeen revolutions a minute. If of good quality, they will not require to be faced more than once in three years, and they will last from fifteen to twenty. They are fitted with two scrapers, one for raking the seed between the stones, the other for raking it off at the proper period. One pair of stones will grind seed sufficient for two double hydraulic presses, and the operation occupies about twenty-five minutes. The seed is now crushed and ground, but before it is passed on to the press it is transferred to the heating-kettle. The heating-kettle is composed of two cylindrical castings, one fitting loosely into the other, so that a space is left between them for a free circulation of
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   >>  



Top keywords:

rollers

 

hydraulic

 
stones
 

inches

 

diameter

 

passed

 
pressure
 
operation
 

revolutions

 
twenty

raking

 
heating
 

kettle

 

crushed

 

presses

 

minute

 

driven

 
bruised
 

stamper

 
machine

require

 

quality

 

seventeen

 

wedges

 

invented

 

eleven

 

quantity

 

machines

 

Holland

 
composed

cylindrical
 

castings

 

transferred

 

minutes

 

ground

 
fitting
 

loosely

 

circulation

 
occupies
 
beetling

fitted

 

fifteen

 

scrapers

 

sufficient

 

double

 

period

 

proper

 

familiar

 

improvements

 

perfect