Re: Alignments of the Newport Tower

On 29 Jan 2007 11:51:15 -0800, "Jack Linthicum"
<jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

--- snip ----

""Interestingly, the Newport Tower was not built around a perfectly
circular plan. From southeast to northwest the diameter measures 22
feet, 2 inches, but when measured from east to west, the diameter
lengthens to 23 feet, 3 inches.1 This thirteen-inch differential is
only one of many strange design aspects and may be an important clue
towards determining the purpose of the structure."

Some years ago I pointed out that this lack of circularity meant that
the builders faced considerable difficulty if they were going to use
the top to support the track for the rotating cap of a windmill. Here
is what I wrote:

According to Hjalmar R. Holand in "America 1355-1364", it is clear
that the Newport Tower is not truly cylindrical and was never built
with the operation of a windmill cap in mind. The relevant text
commences on page 42 and I quote in full:

begin quote:
++++++++++++++++
For three hundred years people have called the Tower at Newport a
windmill, yet very little has been done to ascertain whether it was
adaptable to windmill use. In one matter of fundamental importance
there has been total oblivion. This has to do with the use of wind
for motive power. There were several types and shapes of windmills,
but all had one thing in common. This was a facility for brinaing the
vanes opposite to the wind so as to obtain the needed power. To
accomplish this it was necessary, either to rotate the whole building
around a vertical pivot, as was done in the case of the earliest
types, or to have a rotating roof which would brina the attached vanes
into the desired position. The Newport Tower does not fit into either
class. Being fixed in the ground, it cannot rotate, nor could the
roof rotate, because the top of the wall is not a true circle.
My attention was called to this peculiar circumstance by the
difference in the measurements of the Tower made by those who have
studied it. Thus, Hatfield and Allen give the outside diameter as 23
feet, while Shelton gives 24 feet 8 inches. How could there be such a
gross divergence in their measurements? Upon making my own, I found
that both were right. Measured in one direction, the diameter is
23feet; in another, it is 24 feet 8 inches. In other words, the
rotundity of the Tower is not a true circle.

Curious to learn whether this irregularity had been corrected in the
process of construction, 1 measured the diam. eter of the top by means
of rigid rule, 25 feet long. The results were as follows:

Outside diameter, from north to south 22'-4"
Northeast to southwest 22'-8",
East to west 23'-3"
Southeast to northwest 22'-2"

The east and southeast points of the Tower are only nine feet apart;
yet in this short distance there is a difference of thirteen inches in
the diameter of the building. This is a serious obstacle to the
theory that the Tower was a windmill, because a circular track built
on such an irregular base would part of the time overhang the outer
edge, and again would threaten to run off on the inner side.
Moreover, such a revolving mill roof is very heavy, not only because
of its great size, but also because it carries much of the heavy
machinery of the mill. It is therefore moved on rollers, five or six
feet apart. This leaves an open space several inches wide between the
under side of the roof and the top of the wall. In order to close up
this space and protect the grain from being defiled by birds and
rodents, a windmill usually has an overhan-ing roof which closely
overlaps this opening. But if the outside wall were not perfectly
circular, this overlapping protection would be ineffective. In the
Tower, this opening would be covered only at the point of the greatest
bulge. Elsewhere, this overlap would be anywhere from one inch to
thirteen inches away from the crack.
+++++++++++++++
End Quote



Eric Stevens
.

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