in a working watermill, Thethi, northern Albania.]]

Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.

The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called buhrstone (or burrstone), an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified, fossiliferous limestone. In some sandstones, the cement is calcareous. __TOC__

Types

Millstones used in Britain were commonly of two types:

* Derbyshire Peak stones of grey Millstone Grit, cut from one piece, used for grinding barley; imitation Derbyshire Peak stones are used as decorative signposts at the boundaries of the Peak District National Park. Derbyshire Peak stones wear quickly and are typically used to grind animal feed since they leave stone powder in the flour, making it undesirable for human consumption.

French burr stones, used for finer grinding. Not cut from one piece, but built up from sections of quartz, cemented together with plaster, and bound with iron bands. French Burr comes from the Marne Valley in northern France.

In Europe, a third type of millstone was used. These were uncommon in Britain, but not unknown.

* Cullen stones (stones from Cologne) were quarried in the Rhine Valley near Cologne, Germany.

In India, grinding stones (Chakki) were used to grind grains and spices. These consist of a stationary stone cylinder upon which a smaller stone cylinder rotates. Smaller ones, for household use, were operated by two people. Larger ones, for community or commercial use, used livestock to rotate the upper cylinder.

Runner stone

A runner stone is the upper of a pair of working millstones. The runner stone spins above the stationary bedstone creating the "scissoring" or grinding action of the stones. A runner stone is generally slightly , while the bedstone is slightly . This helps to channel the ground flour to the outer edges of the stones where it can be gathered up.

Patterning

The surface of a millstone is divided by deep grooves called furrows into separate flat areas called lands. Spreading away from the furrows are smaller grooves called feathering or cracking. The furrows and lands are arranged in repeating patterns called harps. A typical millstone will have six, eight or ten harps. The grooves provide a cutting edge and help to channel the ground flour out from the stones. When in regular use stones need to be dressed periodically, that is, re-cut to keep the cutting surfaces sharp.

Millstones come in pairs. The base or bedstone is stationary. Above the bedstone is the turning runner stone which actually does the grinding. The runner stone is supported by a cross-shaped metal piece (rind/rynd) fixed to a "mace head" topping the main shaft or spindle leading to the driving mechanism of the mill (either water or wind powered). The pattern of harps is repeated on the face of each stone, when they are laid face to face the patterns mesh in a kind of "scissoring" motion creating the cutting or grinding function of the stones.

Millstones need to be evenly balanced, and achieving the correct separation of the stones is crucial to producing good quality flour. The experienced miller will be able to adjust their separation very accurately.

Idiom

A millstone around one's neck is a Biblical metaphor meaning a burden or large inconvenience one has to endure.

Ancient history

Neolithic and Upper Paleolithic people used millstone to grind grains, nuts, rhizomes and other vegetable food products for consumption. These implements are often called grinding stones. They used either saddlestones and rotary querns turned by hand. Such devices were also used to grind pigments and metal ores prior to smelting.

See also

.]]

* Bedrock mortar

Edge mill

Querns

References

External links

Millstone Dressing Tools

European millstone quarries: a database

Abandoned Millstones - Peak District

Video clip demonstrating millstone dressing

Millstones & Querns on Flickr

Category:Milling terminology Category:Grinding and lapping Category:Food grinding tools

Name	Thomas Stone
Birth date	1743
Birth place	Charles County, Maryland
Death date	October 05, 1787
Death place	Alexandria, Virginia
Known for	signer of the United States Declaration of Independence
Signature	Thomas Stone signature.png

Thomas Stone (1743 – October 5, 1787) was an American planter who signed the United States Declaration of Independence as a delegate for Maryland. He later worked on the committee that formed the Articles of Confederation in 1777. He acted as President of Congress for a short time in 1784.

Biography

Thomas was born into a prominent family at Poynton Manor in Charles County, Maryland. He was the second son in the large family of David (1709–1773) and Elizabeth Jenifer Stone. His brothers Michael J. Stone and John Hoskins Stone also had important political careers. His uncle was Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer. Thomas read law at the office of Thomas Johnson in Annapolis, was admitted to the bar in 1764 and opened a practice in Frederick, Maryland.

In 1768 Stone married Margaret Brown (1751–1787), the younger sister of Dr. Gustavus R. Brown (see Rose Hill), thought to be the richest man in the county. Soon after, Stone purchased his first 400 acres (1.6 km²) and began the construction of his estate named Habre de Venture. The family would make their home there, and they would have three children: Margaret (1771–1809), Mildred (1773–1837) and Fredrik (1774–1793). Stone's law practice kept him away from home, so he brought in his younger brother Michael to manage development of the plantation.

As the American Revolution neared, Stone joined the Committee of correspondence for Charles County. From 1774 to 1776, he was a member of Maryland's Annapolis Convention. In 1775, the convention sent Stone as a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was re-elected and attended regularly for several years. On May 15, 1776 he voted in favor of drafting a declaration of independence, in spite of restrictions from the Maryland convention that prevented their delegates from supporting it. In June the restriction was lifted, so Maryland's delegates were free to vote for Independence. Previously, Stone had been in favor of opening diplomatic relations with Great Britain and not going to war, as he was not only a pacifist but a conservative reluctant to start a gruesome war.

That same year Stone was assigned to the committee that drafted the Articles of Confederation, and he was struck with a personal tragedy. His wife Margaret visited him in Philadelphia, which was in the midst of a smallpox epidemic. She was inoculated for the disease, but an adverse reaction to the treatment made her ill. Her health continued to decline for the rest of her life.

After Stone signed the Declaration of Independence, he took his wife home and declined future appointment to the Congress, except for part of 1784, when the meetings were at Annapolis.

Stone accepted election to the Maryland Senate from 1779 until 1785, at first in order to promote the Articles of Confederation, which Maryland was the last state to approve. But he gave up the practice of law to care for Margaret and their growing children. As her health continued to decline, he gradually withdrew from public life. When Margaret died in 1787, he became depressed and died less than four months later in Alexandria, reportedly of a "broken heart".

Thomas was buried at his plantation home, which still stands. After his death the plantation remained in the family for five generations until 1936 when it sold privately. In 1977 the main structure was destroyed by fire. The National Park Service purchased the property and restored it to its original plans. Habredeventure today is the centerpiece of the Thomas Stone National Historic Site, and is operated as a museum by the NPS. The site, located on 6655 Rose Hill Road in Port Tobacco Village, Maryland, opened to the public in 1997.

See also

William Stone - Relative and Governor of the Maryland colony

John Hoskins Stone - Relative and Governor of the State of Maryland

Annapolis Convention

Peggy Stewart House - National Historic Landmark in Annapolis, Maryland, at one time owned by Thomas Stone

Thomas Stone High School - Charles County, Maryland public high school

Notes

External links

Thomas Stone National Historic Site website

Biography by Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 1856

Category:1743 births Category:1787 deaths Category:Continental Congressmen from Maryland Category:Signers of the United States Declaration of Independence Category:American people of English descent Category:People from Frederick, Maryland Category:American planters Category:Burials in Maryland Category:Maryland State Senators

Bgcolour	silver
Name	Mario Bava
Imagesize	300px
Imagecaption	Bava in 1966
Birth date	July 31, 1914
Birth place	Sanremo, Liguria, Italy
Death date	April 25, 1980
Death place	Rome, Italy

Mario Bava (July 31, 1914 – April 25, 1980) was an Italian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer remembered as one of the greatest names from the "golden age" of Italian horror films.

Biography

Mario Bava was born in Sanremo, Liguria, Italy. The son of Eugenio Bava, a sculptor who became a pioneer of special effects photography and subsequently one of the great cameramen of Italian silent pictures, Mario Bava's first ambition was to become a painter. Unable to turn out paintings at a profitable rate, he went into his father's business, working as an assistant to other Italian cinematographers like Massimo Terzano, while also offering assistance to his father who headed the special effects department at Benito Mussolini's film factory, the Istituto LUCE.

Bava became a cinematographer in his own right in 1939, shooting two short films with Roberto Rossellini. He made his feature debut in the early 1940s. Bava's camerawork was an instrumental factor in developing the screen personas of such stars of the period as Gina Lollobrigida, Steve Reeves and Aldo Fabrizi.

Bava co-directed his first genre film in 1958: Le morte viene dallo spazio (The Day the Sky Exploded), the first Italian science fiction film. Because he had no earlier credited experience as a director, it was credited solely to Paolo Heusch. In 1960 he directed Black Sunday, which made a star out of Barbara Steele. His use of light and dark in black and white films is widely acclaimed along with his use of color in films such as I tre volti della paura (Black Sabbath) (1963) and La Frusta e il corpo (The Whip and the Body) (1963).

His work has proved very influential: Bava directed what is called the first Italian giallo film, La ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew Too Much) (1963), and his 1965 sci-fi horror Terrore nello spazio (Planet of the Vampires) was a probable influence on Alien (1979). Although comic books had served as the basis for countless serials and children's films in Hollywood, Bava's (1968) brought an adult perspective to the genre. 1971's Reazione a catena/ Bay of Blood (also known as Twitch of the Death Nerve) is considered to be one of the earliest slasher films, and was imitated in the first two American-made Friday the 13th movies. Many elements of his 1966 film Operazione paura (Kill, Baby... Kill!), regarded by Martin Scorsese as Bava's masterpiece, also appear in the Asian strain of terror film known as J-Horror.

Mario Bava was very disappointed with the distribution of some of his later films (which caused him to retire in 1978 at age 63). Lisa and the Devil (1972) was never picked up by a distrbutor, and had to be later re-edited (with new 1975 footage) into an Exorcist-clone retitled House of Exorcism in order to get released. Bava's Cani Arrabbiati (1974) was never released theatrically during his lifetime; the film only appeared on DVD in the late 1990s, re-edited a bit with some new footage, as Rabid Dogs, and then released again in 2007 under the title Kidnapped. Bava retired in 1978, and died in 1980 at age 65.

Mario Bava's son, Lamberto Bava, worked for 14 years as Bava's assistant director. On several of his movies, Bava was credited as John M. Old. Later, Lamberto Bava was sometimes credited as John M. Old, Jr.

Several books have been published about Mario Bava: Mario Bava by Pascal Martinet (Edilig, 1984) and Mario Bava edited by Jean-Louis Leutrat (Éditions du Céfal, 1994) in French; Mario Bava by Alberto Pezzotta (Il Castoro Cinema, 1995) in Italian; The Haunted Worlds of Mario Bava by Troy Howarth (Fab Press, 2002), and most recently, the massive critical biography Mario Bava All the Colors of the Dark by Tim Lucas (Video Watchdog, 2007; ISBN 0-9633756-1-X).

Filmography

{| class="wikitable" ! rowspan="2" width="33"|Year ! rowspan="2"|Film ! colspan="3"|Credited as ! rowspan="2" width=145|Notes |- ! width=95 |Director ! width=95 |Writer ! width=95 |Cinematographer |-align="center" | align="center"| 1943 | align="left"| L'Avventura di Annabella | | | | |-align="center" | align="center"| 1943 | align="left"| Sant'Elena, piccola isola | | | | |-align="center" | align="center"| 1946 | align="left"| L'Elisir d'amore | | | | |-align="center" | align="center"| 1947 | align="left"| Uomini e cieli | | | | |-align="center" | align="center"| 1948 | align="left"| Natale al campo 119 | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1948 | align="left"| Pagliacci | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1949 | align="left"| Antonio di Padova | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1949 | align="left"| Follie per l'opera | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1950 | align="left"| Miss Italia | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1950 | align="left"| È arrivato il cavaliere! | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1950 | align="left"| Canzone di primavera | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1950 | align="left"| Vita da cani | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1950 | align="left"| Quel bandito sono io | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1951 | align="left"| La Famiglia Passaguai | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1951 | align="left"| Amor non ho... però... però | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1951 | align="left"| Guardie e ladri | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1951 | align="left"| La Famiglia Passaguai fa fortuna | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1952 | align="left"| Papà diventa mamma | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1952 | align="left"| Gli Eroi della domenica | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1953 | align="left"| Balocchi e Profumi | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1953 | align="left"| Il Bacio dell'Aurora | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1953 | align="left"| Perdonami! | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1953 | align="left"| Il Viale della speranza | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1953 | align="left"| Villa Borghese | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1954 | align="left"| Terza liceo | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1954 | align="left"| Hanno rubato un tram | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1954 | align="left"| Graziella | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1954 | align="left"| Cose da pazzi | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1955 | align="left"| Buonanotte... avvocato! | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1955 | align="left"| Le Avventure di Giacomo Casanova | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1956 | align="left"| I Vampiri | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1956 | align="left"| Roland the Mighty | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1956 | align="left"| Città di notte | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1956 | align="left"| Beautiful But Dangerous | | | || |-align="center" | align="center" | 1956 | align="left"| Mio figlio Nerone | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1958 | align="left"| Le Fatiche di Ercole | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1958 | align="left"| The Day the Sky Exploded | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1959 | align="left"| Hercules Unchained | | | || |-align="center" |-align="center" | align="center" | 1959 | align="left"| Caltiki - The Immortal Monster | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1959 | align="left"| The Giant of Marathon | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1959 | align="left"| The White Warrior | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1960 | align="left"| Black Sunday | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1960 | align="left"| Esther and the King | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1961 | align="left"| Hercules in the Haunted World | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1961 | align="left"| Erik the Conqueror | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1961 | align="left"| The Wonders of Aladdin | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1961 | align="left"| The Last of the Vikings | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1963 | align="left"| The Girl Who Knew Too Much | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1963 | align="left"| Black Sabbath | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1963 | align="left"| Blood and Black Lace | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1963 | align="left"| The Whip and the Body | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1964 | align="left"| The Road to Fort Alamo | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1964 | align="left"| Planet of the Vampires | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1964 | align="left"| Knives of the Avenger | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1966 | align="left"| Kill, Baby, Kill | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1966 | align="left"| Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1968 | align="left"| | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1970 | align="left"| Five Dolls for an August Moon | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1970 | align="left"| Hatchet for the Honeymoon | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1970 | align="left"| Roy Colt and Winchester Jack | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1971 | align="left"| Twitch of the Death Nerve | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1972 | align="left"| Baron Blood | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1972 | align="left"| Four Times That Night | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1973 | align="left"| Lisa and the Devil | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1974 | align="left"| Rabid Dogs | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1977 | align="left"| Shock | | | | |-align="center" | align="center" | 1979 | align="left"| The Venus of Ille | | | | |}

External links

Biography of Bava

Images - Mario Bava, short biography

Senses of Cinema - about his films

Yellow, a short film dedicated to Mario Bava

Mario Bava All the Colors of the Dark Blog - Tim Lucas

Sources

Mario Bava Maestro of Macabre (2001), directed by Garry S.Grant

Mario Bava Operazione paura (2004), directed by Gabriele Acerbo & Roberto Pisoni

Mario Bava All the Colors of the Dark (2007) by Tim Lucas

Kill, Baby, Kill! Il cinema di Mario Bava (2007) by Gabriele Acerbo & Roberto Pisoni

Le ombre della paura - Il cinema italiano del terrore 1960/1980 (2002) by Paolo Fazzini & Marco Cruciani

References

Category:1914 births Category:1980 deaths Category:People from Sanremo Category:Italian film directors Category:Horror film directors