Re: Alignments of the Newport Tower

"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:p2nsr21oj00eqq32gel3pa6dg7te549g5t@xxxxxxxxxx

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.
++Quote
I measured the diameter 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 overhanging 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

Given that the walls are about 1.5 feet (0.5 metres) thick at the top, a
circular track placed on them would not "overhang" at any point. Also,
provided the top of the walls is properly levelled*, the anti-pigeon skirt
for the cap does not have to overlap, merely to come almost in contact with
the wall-top.

David B.

*Incidentally, I don't buy the claim that the top of the Newport Tower walls
was damaged in an attempt at sabotage during the Revolution; if you want to
sabotage a structure standing on eight stupid pillars, you undermine a few
of the pillars. If the tops of the walls were damaged, it was probably the
result of a sudden disappearance of the cap and sails of the "windmiln".


.

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