Windmills and Windpumps
Wind-driven machines are, in my opinion, man's greatest ever invention. Other contenders for the crown are the stone axe and fire, but the axe was merely a clever development of an existing item, and fire was not an invention, as such; our ancestors merely learnt how to call it up and control it.
Wind-driven machines take the power of the wind and harness it; and the wind drives the machines without being either damaged or changed. What could be better than that?
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Sailing ships and yachts are also "wind-driven machines" - and some of them are amongst the finest such "machines" ever made - but this category is devoted exclusively to those wind-driven machines which we call windmills. Some of them were used to crush corn; some were employed to lift water. All use the energy of the wind to perform feats of labour which would otherwise require a vast input of muscle power and of man or animal energy.
(For wind-driven generators, see Generating Electricity)
