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The pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria

Chapter 81: 77. An Altar Organ blown by the agency of a Wind-mill.
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About This Book

A systematic practical handbook of machines and demonstrations that uses air, steam, heat, and water to produce mechanical effects. The text gives clear descriptions, construction details, and diagrams for siphons, valves, pumps, fountains, jets, self‑acting mechanisms, and ritual or theatrical contrivances driven by pressure and temperature changes. Explanations focus on the mechanical principles behind pneumatic and hydraulic behaviors and on ways to control flow and timing, with numbered propositions that pair instructional steps with illustrative figures for building and operating each apparatus.

77. An Altar Organ blown by the agency of a Wind-mill.

The construction of an organ from which, when the wind blows, the sound of a flute shall be produced. Let A, A, A, (fig. 77), be the pipes, B C the transverse tube communicating with them, D E the vertical tube, and E F another transverse tube leading from D E into a box G H, the inner surface of which is made level to fit a piston. Into this box fit the piston K L, which is capable of descending into it freely. To the piston attach a rod, M N, and to this another, N X, working on the rod P R. At N let there be a pin moving readily, and to the extremity X fasten a small plate, X O, near which a rod, S, is to be placed, moving on iron pivots placed in a frame which admits of being shifted. To the rod S attach two small wheels, U and Q, of which U is furnished with pegs placed close to the plate X O, and Q with broad arms like the sails of a wind-mill. When all of these arms, urged by the wind, drive round the wheel Q, the rod S will be driven round, so that the wheel U and the pegs attached to it will strike the plate X O at intervals and raise the piston; when the peg recedes, the piston, descending, will force out the air in the box G H into the tubes and pipes, and produce the sound. We may always move the frame which contains the rod S towards the prevailing wind, that the revolution may be more rapid and uniform.