A bone crusher was a device for crushing animal bones. Bones obtained during slaughter were cleaned, boiled in water and dried for several months. After that, they were suitable for crushing with the special machine into a relatively dry gritty powder which was used as fertilizer.
The machine, shown in the picture, is powered by a water wheel. It contains eight S-shaped pairs of cams that raise the crushers alternately and let them fall into material to be crushed. The simple transmission increases the rotation speed of the crusher wheel to 21 rpm from the water wheel speed of about 7 rpm.
Bone meal was used since about 1790 as a welcome supplement to the ordinary farmyard manure. From about 1880 it was supplanted by chemical fertilizers.
Read more about Bone Crusher: Similar Machines
Famous quotes containing the word bone:
“Sang a bone upon the shore;
“A child found all a child can lack,
Whether of pleasure or of rest,
Upon the abundance of my breast”:
A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind.
”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)