National Miller Day in the Netherlands
Description:
The Roman Pliny the Elder once said of the Dutch: “You do not know whether the land is their habitation or water.” In fact, the land here is shaky, unreliable. Half of the country lies below sea level. The expulsion of water and the struggle for land suitable for life and agriculture is a daily Dutch reality. The motto on the coat of arms of the Netherlands reads “Fight and swim!”
Holland is said to be like a small plate in which tulips, tulips and tulips swim. And M. Dodge, author of the famous “Silver Skates”, a favorite childhood book of many generations in many countries, wrote about Holland: “It is so flat that all objects are clearly visible even from a distance, and a chicken can be seen as well as a windmill, and ships in Holland are tied to doorposts – as in other countries they tie horses and load on them all the good from the windows of the upper floor.” In this country people live like beavers, and it may happen that one day, when the tide reaches its highest point, Holland will be carried into the ocean.
Holland is a constant struggle with the elements, canals, ramparts, dams, pile houses. There are windmills on the canals. Most Russians associate the mill with something purely patriarchal - a village morning, the smell of fresh bread, grazing near the geese river, and then in the same way. It is unlikely that at the mention of mills, someone will have epithets such as “industrial breakthrough” or, for example, “triumph of engineering thought” in their head – and in vain, since this is how it would be necessary to characterize the importance of mills for Holland. In the Netherlands, mills are not for grinding flour. Here, the mills became the weapon that allowed the land forces to win the first major victory over the water forces.
The people of the Netherlands never expected mercy from nature. Previously, man could not cut huge logs, grind into powder solid mineral rock for the manufacture of paints, but just grind enough flour and press the oil was not easy. Having entrusted this work to mills, in the distant XIII century the Dutch brought to a new level the construction of houses and ships, textile production, production of products. Having learned to use the power of the wind, they faced a problem – they had to do the work day by day, and the changeable wind did not always blow in the right direction. Then Dutch engineers began to build mills with rotating towers - such towers could be turned, choosing the most effective position in relation to the wind wings.
The Netherlands has long been one of the most densely populated countries in Europe - already in the XI century they began to lack land, every piece of arable land was on the count. It would seem that nothing can be done with this circumstance, the Lord created as much earth as he created, and there is nowhere to take a new earth. But no - in the sixteenth century, the Dutchman Jan Ligwater found a way to increase the land area - again with the help of a wind engine. By this time, the Dutch were already able to drain wetlands using trenches and dams, but deep water could not cope - a system of powerful pumps was needed. Ligwater proposed to create wind pumps, connecting the shafts of the mills with the screw of Archimedes. However, it turned out that single pumps will not raise the water to the desired height - then he developed a system of sequential pumping. Ligwater proposed to build whole systems of parallel channels. Dozens of mills had to pump water from the canal to the canal, eventually diverting it beyond the dam surrounding the drained area. Thus there was a land not provided for by the plan of creation – or, in Voltaire’s words, “God created the earth, and the Dutch added Holland to it.” The scale of this extension is impressive even by modern standards – over the past six hundred years, the territory of the Netherlands has increased by 10%.
To protect the polders created with the help of mills from destructive tides and warn about the tides of people, the Dutch invented a special system. Light floats float on the canals. Each of them is connected to an air mill. If the water rises above normal, the mill will spin, give a signal to all pumping stations, and the pumping of water will begin. In the Netherlands, for the first time, such an automatic water level maintenance system appeared. Of course, now the water level is regulated automatically using electronic and computer equipment and pumping stations.
Before the invention of the steam engine, thousands of mills worked in the Netherlands. Each village had its own mill, or even several, and by the position of the mill wings, the neighbors could always find out what was going on in the miller’s family. If nothing special happened, the miller stopped the mill wings in the position of a straight cross, one wing parallel to the ground, the other perpendicular. The indirect position of the wings indicated an event. The slope of the wings in one direction indicated that the miller had an addition to the family; the slope in the other direction meant the death of a family member. It is said that during World War II, Dutch resistance fighters used mills to report to British planes where the Germans were standing.
Mills still operate in the Netherlands, although there are only a thousand. Even the Ligwater system of 19 mills can be seen with your own eyes in the south of the country, in Kinderdijk. However, the functional value of the mill is almost not carried, and work mainly in the tourist season. Not far from Zaandam, located 10 km from Amsterdam, in the town of Cog an de Zan, is the Museum of Mills.