The workplace of the mill is out of reach but the
parts hidden out of sight in the cárcavo are accessible and rather well preserved.
I have never seen a cárcavo this high (15,
†).
There are three levels.
Placed on a plateau just below the roof of the cárcavo is a turbine (13)
with a transmission box on top of it. There is a horizontal axle
with two wheels fitted: a cogwheel and a belt wheel. The latter was probably of no use; I could not
find where the belt would have gone. It is possible that the axle passes through the wall
at the right side and powered machinery (e.g. bolter, cleaner) in the workplace.
The cogwheel grips into a bigger wheel with teeth of wood. The axle of the latter passes
through the roof of the cárcavo and would have turned the stone.
Lastly there is a lever making it possible to tune the system from the workplace.
The upper turbine is drained by a wide
tube which runs steeply down for a few meters (14) and then serves as input for
the second turbine (16). The outlet of this turbine is a much narrower pipe (15).
The turbine could be adjusted from the workfloor via cog- and wormwheels mounted on very
long axles. An axle of a few meters length comes down through the roof of the cárcavo (18 right).
At its bottom end cog wheels provide for a change to the horizontal (14 bottom). At the
end of this slightly shorter rod a worm wheel grips into a cog wheel from the
turbine (16, 19).
The body of the turbine carries a tag of the José Amorós
company based in Zaragoza. Though this company is present in other mills
(e.g. Arrés, Caldearenas)
I could find almost nothing about Amorós. It was probably one of the smaller companies of the
sector.
