Desert Windmill

The creaking of the old windmill stirs the unsettled spirits, sending them out from their dark corners to roam the empty plains in an endless search for some unsuspecting soul to syphon, scouring the dry earth with a deathly cold that creeps into the roots and bones of every little creature cowering in fear. A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important application was to pump water. Windmills used for generating electricity are commonly known as wind turbines. The windwheel of the Greek engineer Heron of Alexandria in the 1st century AD is the earliest known instance of using a wind-driven wheel to power a machine. Another early example of a wind-driven wheel was the prayer wheel, which was used in ancient Tibet and China since the 4th century. It has been claimed that the Babylonian emperor Hammurabi planned to use wind power for his ambitious irrigation project in the 17th century BC. There is an ongoing debate among historians on whether and how the windmill from the middle East influenced the development of the early European windmill. In northwestern Europe, the horizontal-axis or vertical windmill (so called due to the plane of the movement of its sails) is believed to date from the last quarter of the 12th century in the triangle of northern France, eastern England and Flanders. The earliest certain reference to a windmill in Europe (assumed to have been of the vertical type) dates from 1185, in Weedley, Yorkshire, although a number of earlier but less certainly dated twelfth century European sources referring to windmills have also been found. These earliest mills were used to grind cereals.