Windmills on the basins of Sicily      
                         (The underlining refers to the pictures at Picasa)                              

Among other things I am a bit of a wild rover and my most faithfull (Already some 400.000km`s) companion on the road is my old van. It brought me from home to the North Cape, Gibraltar, Taranto,  many other places and always back home. So on May 16 we set off for a tour around the coasts of Sicily. On route we would look in on a few  little “settlements” such as Rome, Siena, Firenze, Pisa and Lucca. Not many people would give a second thought (or even a first!) to windmills when they think of Italy or Sicily. My female companion had no clue as to my ulterior motives: a good, long look at the salt water basins and windmills of Trapani and Marsala.

On May 25, driving up to the Museo delle Saline at Trapani, it quickly became clear that not a single mill was intact! It looked like a battlefield after Don Quichotte had been through there. Some mills are so badly damaged and are so dilapidated, our Don would have turned up his nose at them. This is a museum that houses a few sketches and loose bits and ends. Some pieces are almost recognisable: An overhead shaft, an overhead wheel, a wallower and conical wheels, an Archimedes screw, a breast beam and some more bits and pieces. Also stone spindles and millstones (often a set of two pairs of millstones for the salt mills).
The museum mill itself isn’t open to the public (apparently there’s nothing left to be seen. Salt is still being extracted but nowadays electric motors and so called membrane pumps are being used. Exploiting free wind power doesn’t exist here anymore. 

According to a miller we met here, there were still two working mills nearby Marsala, a windmill for pumping seawater into a basin and a windmill to grind large salt chunks. This miller didn’t seem to mind my having entered the grounds and even crawling into one of the mills to take a few snapshots of the interior. But then we had toe leave because it was closing time. 

The technique of obtaining salt from seawater is rather simple: first seawater is pumped into an enormous but shallow basin or “pan”. This used to be done by windmills supplied with a pump or an Archimedes screw. American windmills with an Archimedes Screw were also used for this purpose, a well-known combination. The sun and the wind did the rest. The water evaporated and the salt concentration increased. 

The Specific Gravity of the salt water in the basins is measured with a so-called Hydrometer before crystallisation has started. Then the water is pumped into the next, smaller basin. Here evaporation continues and the salt content gets thicker. Complete crystallisation  and precipitation only takes place in the third and last basin. Here the salt is scooped up and transported onto high heaps by a conveyor belt . These salt piles are covered with roofing tiles to protect the salt from the elements, especially from the rain, which seems logical to me.

We left for Marsala on may 26, a little downhearted, not expecting much, but to our utter surprise the Museo delle Saline was much better than the one in Trapani. The museum mill here is properly restored and open to the public. According to an inscription the restoration was done by Paolo Stampa in 1996. There was no miller or somebody else to give us extra and technical information about the mill and how to operate it which was a pity. In contrast to what the miller had told me the day before, these mills weren’t active either. (unless I misunderstood him because of my broken Italian however I never broke something) 

There are two mills here which seem to be in good condition at first glance, but they’re not! They are only for the tourists to photograph, but al least an attempt is made to keep up appearances. The basins in both area’s are filled with all different remnants of the mills, but sorry to say, it shows no promise of surviving. Apparently there aren’t enough people with interest or money to restore the mills or a few of them. The museum mill looks good. One can wander through the mill, all the way up and down and from the gallery one has a lovely view of the salt basins. 

Most of these mills are build in brick, round and conical. The conical cap is made of sheet iron work with a protective hood for breast beam and bearing. Some of the mills are build on a substructure which was used as workspace or storage etc. Some other mills are build on ground level mostly with annexes. In some cases an American Windmill is placed on such a round mill building. Possibly as replacement for a lost sail crossing. Remarkable is that all the mills have an intake which is at right angles to the Archimedes screw. Seawater was pumped over a threshold into the spillway.   

On these battle fields of six-sailers one can distinguish two ways of constructing the sail crosses. In the first case there are three steel bars stabbed through the wooden wind shaft. The six sails are connected to these bars with grappling irons. Between the grappling irons one has used bolts to avoid displacement of the sails. In the head of the wooden wind shaft is fixed a long steel bar (bowsprit) with a strengthening around the head. Between the top of this bar and the ends of the sails are attached stay-ropes to avoid too much bending of the sails at high wind speed.

Another system shows two round iron plates fixed to the long iron bar (bowsprit) which is fixed in the head of the wind shaft. Between these plates are fixed the iron or steel bars on which the sails are connected. All mills have double framed sails which may be named butterfly sails. One can compare them with the sails of “De Arkens” at Franeker in the Netherlands. The bars are stabbed through the stocks and are fixed in the hem laths. Possibly very tight fixed because I couldn`t discover any connection material here. Between the stocks and the hem laths are fixed two up longs. 

In the museum mill it’s sometimes a little narrow to be able to take good pictures, but I think the result is okay.
The technique in these mills is not very different from other mills we know. They are not very big and the construction of the machinery is simple and light. A picture can tell more then a thousand words so you can find photographs on Picasa. http://picasaweb.google.nl/Noordkaper04/WindmolensOpSicilieWindmillsOnSicily# 

From the ladies in the museum I could not get any technical information how winding was done. I suppose that one used a  long and strong wooden stake or beam which could be linked in the wooden construction sticking out on top of the mill building. Inside the cap the anchor chains must be set free and then one could wind the cap by pushing. The cap is laying with the cap circle direct on the dead curb. In between cap circle and dead curb is only grease for lubrication. The whole construction is implied in a brick flange in which the keep flange is fixed.

In the inner circle of the dead curb are round holes in which fit the steel pins to connect to the anchor chains.
On the outside the sails were anchored with thick ropes tied up to wooden pins in the mill building. I did not see such as a lightning conduction on the outside of the mill.
On both areas I haven’t seen any cloths. I think that clothing, reefing etc. is done as anywhere else in the world.

From top to bottom the construction is roughly as follows:

Inside the cap we see the breast beam and a tail beam. These beams are anchored between such as cap cheers. There are also puncheons and bridle bars for strengthening. The wooden overhead shaft lies in a stone neck bearing. The tail lies in a bearing which is constructed in the tail beam.

The cogs of the slope standing overhead wheel drive a conical overhead wallower. In this wallower is fitted the steel main shaft which is divided in several parts which are connected to each other with claw couplings. The pen of the main shaft is fixed in the upper bearing which is mounted in a spindle beam. Passing each floor the main shaft is supported by a hard wooden block which is being smeared with grease.

On the storey below the brake is a light construction of three beams anchored in the wall. In the centred crossing also is fixed such a block to support the main shaft. 

The brake is a remarkable one. A big wooden drum is constructed around the main shaft. A thick rope is winded with two or three turns around this drum. One end is anchored in the wall, the other end is led to the floor below via pulley. Pulling the rope will strangle the drum and stop the mill. I think it worked very well in these kind of mills. I wonder if such a construction should work in a big windmill like at Kinderdijk. An interesting question, I think. 

On the next floor we see the spur wheel. Mostly this wheel drives two stone spindles by two stone wallowers. We also see a square framing of beams. This framing has two spindle beams which are implying the shaft ends of the stone spindles. Just below this frame is a cross beam in which is constructed the bearing of the main shaft.  

On ground level are situated two pair of mill stone couples. In the smaller mills on the basins is mostly one pair of mill stones. On top of the runner is a funnel in which the salt chunks can be thrown. The salt is grind and falls into a kind of tub on which the bed stones are placed. The stone spindles are led through these bed stones passing a wooden bearing to a steel construction under the bed stones. In this construction the end of the stone spindle is fixed in a bearing. By lifting or lowering the runner one can adjust the distance between runner and bed stone like we know from grain mills. I could not photograph this construction. The mill stones are conical like in “the very old days”. 

In the museum mill we could enjoy a film about the obtaining of salt and how this system worked when the mills were in function. The system is still the same but nowadays electro motors are used. In this museum are also a lot of technical drawings and photographs from the old times which present a good picture of how it was. Remarkable is the hand operated Archimedes screw. I think that this was used to pump out small amounts of water from the basins where the salt is shovelled up. 

Because of the many mill ruins these visits became not a highlight of this trip around the island. Sometimes there were tears in my eyes but maybe that was because of the salt in the air. Therefore I wonder if there are no TIMS members in Italy or on Sicily who could do something for these mills. It would be a shame if this cultural heritage would be lost for ever. But maybe that’s  a task for “Europe” that seems to rule almost anything already. The salt basins deserve a place on the list of World Heritage just like Kinderdijk among others. 

This report is made by an eyewitness who only could use his own observation and background knowledge of a “Mio”, which means in Dutch “Molenaar in opleiding”. In English “Miller in training”. There was no adequate information available despite the fact that language was not a big problem. So it’s possible that on some points I jumped into a wrong conclusion, or I used a wrong word. Therefore I heartily invite (Italian) experts to give additional information or corrections if necessary.

Because the lack of Italian equivalents for all parts of the mills I have chosen the English terms from the well-known Dictionary of Molinology. 

Jan Althof

www.althofweb.nl