FLOUR 343 FLOUR, MANUFACTURE OF. Flour is the grain of wheat reduced to powder, and separated from the outer husk or coverings in which the seed is enveloped. The name is also applied to the grain of other cereals, and to the farinaceous seed of pulses similarly treated, and it is used generally to indicate any finely powdered dry sub stance ; but when the term is employed without any quali fication, it invariably means wheaten flour. As prepara tions of flour form the staple food of all civilized communities of the West, the cultivation of wheat and the manufacture of flour are necessarily industries of the greatest magnitude and importance, rice being the only other grain which rivals (and which indeed possibly sur passes) wheat in the number of human beings it feeds. The cultivation of wheat was one of the earliest develop ments of human civilization, and there are not wanting evidences that in making use of the grain the primitive races submitted it to a coarse pounding or grinding, thereby reducing it to a state resembling the meal of the present day. From remains found on the sites of the ancient lake dwellings of Switzerland it is obvious that tho original form of corn-crushing or mealing apparatus con sisted of a roundish stone generally very hard sandstone about the size of a man s fist, with certain hollows or flattened surfaces on two opposite sides (figs. 1-3). The Fig. 3. FIGS. 1-3. Primitive Corn-crushers (from Keller s Lake Divcllings). rounded outline of the stone worked and fitted into a corre sponding cavity in another stone in which the grain to be crushed or pounded was placed. By the deepening of the cavity in under stone and the addition of a wooden handle to the upper stone-ball, would be formed the mortar and pestle; and in another direction, by fitting the upper stone for a motion of rotation within the cavity of the lower, the form of the quern would be produced, and the germ of the modern flour-mill elaborated. In early times, and indeed amid rude forms of society still, the preparation of meal and flour was a part of the domestic operations of preparing bread and otherwise cooking of food. At a period so remote as that of the patriarch Abraham it appears there was a distinction in the qualities of the flour or meal which could be produced, as Sarah was directed to " make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth." There is much probability in the suggestion of Dr Livingstone that the grinding apparatus used by Sarah was similar to that still used in Central Africa, and figured in tho frontispiece of his Zambesi and its Tributaries. In that work the apparatus is thus described : " The mill consists of a block of granite, syenite, or even mica- schist, 15 or 18 inches square, and 5 or 6 thick, with a piece of quartz or other hard rock, about the size of a half brick, one side of which has a convex surface, and fits into a concave hollow in the large and stationary stone. The workwoman kneeling grasps this upper millstone with both hands, and works it back wards and forwards in the hollow of the lower millstone, in tho same way that a baker works his dough when pressing it and push ing it from him. The weight of the person is brought to bear on the movable stone, and while it is pressed and pushed forwards and backwards, one hand supplies every now and then a little grain, to be thus at first bruised, and then ground on the lower stone, which is placed on the slope, so that the meal when ground falls on to a skin or mat spread for the purpose. This is, pel haps, the most primitive form of mill, and anterior to that in Oriental count ries, where two women grind at one mill, and may have been that used by Sarah of old when she entertained the angels." That the two forms of grinding apparatus were familiar to the nations of antiquity is obvious from tho allusions made to both in the Pentateuch. In the book of Numbers (xi. 8) we read that the Israelites gathered manna, " ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar ; " and again in Deuteronomy (xxiv. G) there is an injunction that " no man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge, for he taketh a man s life to pledge." Numerous other allusions to mills, mortars, and the grinding of corn are scattered throughout Scripture, from which it is made clear that the grinding of corn was, among the Hebrews, a domestic employment left entirely to women. Among tho ancient Romans the mortar and pestle were alone used for pounding wheat, and the work was similarly done by women down to the year 173 B.C. At that date baking was established as a separate occupation, the craftsmen being called pistores, from pinsere, to pound, in allusion to their manner of preparing flour. At a subsequent date mills were introduced, of which the quern was the simplest and original form. It was called the mola manuaria, or mola trusatilis, and was worked chiefly by slaves, the labour being regarded as eminently degrading. Later the mola asinaria moved by animal power, and the mola aquaria or water mill, were employed as a substitute for hand-worked mills, Their mola aquaria approached in form and mechanism the rude small mills which existed in the more remote parts of Scotland and Ireland down till the early part of the present century. At the beginning of last century a pair of Roman millstones were found at Adel in Yorkshire, and described in the Philosophical Transactions. One stone, 20 inches in diameter, was con vex in outline, while the other was concave, and retained traces of notching. The quern, and exceedingly rude water mills, were in use throughout Great Britain for many centuries, and con tinued to be employed in outlying districts of Scotland and Ireland till very recent times. Strutt, in his Chronicle of England, says " At what time mills were first used in Britain cannot be determined ; hand-mills, which without doubt were the most ancient of any, we may conceive were known in the time of Ethelbert, king of Kent, who ruled that nation from the year 560 to the year 616 ; for in his laws a particular fine of twelve shillings is imposed upon any man who should corrupt the king s grinding maid; 1 hence it is also evident that they were turned and tended by women ; but it is probable that before the end of the heptarchy water-mills were erected, because in ancient deeds and grants of lands we find mention made of mills, which are generally said to be situated near the water." Dr Johnson, in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scot land, describes the working of the quern as seen by himself. " There are water mills," he says, " in Sky and Raasa, but where they are too far distant the housewives grind their oats with a quern or handmill, which consists of two stones 1 Leges Ethelberti, apud Wilkins.
