RICE MILL. Various machines have been contrived for cleaning rice. One in use in most parts of S.E. Asia for hulling paddy, is similar to those used 4000 years ago. It consists of two circular stones, two feet in diameter, resting one on the other; a bamboo basket is wrought around tho upper one so as to form the hopper. A peg is firmly set into the face of the upper stone, half way between its periphery and centre, having tied to it by ono end a stick three feet long, ex tended horizontally, and attached by the other to another stick pending from the roof of the shed under which the mill is placed. This forms a crank, by which tho upper stone is made to re volve on the other set firmly on the ground. The motion throws tho rico through the centre of the stone, and causes it to escape between the edges of the two stones.
At Rangoon, since 1860, a mill is in use which was invented by Thomas Sutherland of Melbourne.
By it 350 tons can be turned out in the 24 hours, and nearly all the work is done by machineq. The value of rice produced by this company s mills was at once valued at ls. a cwt. over native cleaned rice.
About the year 1830, the planters of America began experiments with rice mills, and about that year saw the first working of a mall mill. The rico threshing-mills, steam -engine attached, of Carolina and New Orleans, have become' splendid operative machines. The rice in sheaf is taken up to the thresher by a conveyer ; it is threshed, tho straw taken off, then thrice winnowed and twice screened, and the result in some cases ex ceeds a thousand bushels of dean rough rice, the work of a short winter day.