Editing Ausonius (section)

==Saw mill==
[[File:Römische Sägemühle.svg|thumb|250px|Scheme of a water-driven [[Hierapolis sawmill|Roman sawmill at Hierapolis]], [[Asia Minor]]. The 3rd-century mill is the earliest known machine to incorporate a [[Crank (mechanism)|crank]] and [[connecting rod]] mechanism.<ref name="Ritti, Grewe, Kessener 2000, 161">{{harvnb|Ritti|Grewe|Kessener|2007|p=161}}</ref>]]
His writings are also remarkable for mentioning in passing the working of a [[water mill]] sawing marble on a tributary of the [[Moselle]]:
 
{{blockquote|text=....renowned is [[Kyll|Celbis]] for glorious fish, and that other, as he turns his mill-stones in furious revolutions and drives the shrieking saws through smooth blocks of marble, hears from either bank a ceaseless din...}}

[[File:Sutters_mill.JPG|thumb|right|250px|Modern reconstruction of Sutter's Mill, a water-powered 19th-century [[California]] sawmill.]]
The excerpt sheds new light on the development of [[Roman technology]] in using water power for different applications. It is one of the rare references in [[Roman literature]] to water mills used to cut stone, but that is a logical consequence of the application of water power to mechanical sawing of stone and presumably wood also. Earlier references to the widespread use of mills occur in [[Vitruvius]] in his ''[[De Architectura]]'' of {{circa|25 BC}}, and the ''[[Naturalis Historia]]'' of [[Pliny the Elder]] published in 77 AD. Such applications of mills would multiply after the fall of the empire through the [[Middle Ages]] into the [[modern era]]. The mills at [[Barbegal]], in southern [[France]], are famous for their application of water power to grinding grain to make flour and were built in the 1st century AD. They consisted of 16 mills in a parallel sequence on a hill near [[Arles]].

The construction of a saw mill is even simpler than a flour or grinding mill since no gearing is needed, and the rotary saw blade can be driven directly from the water wheel axle, as the example of [[Sutter's Mill]], [[California]], shows. However, a different mechanism is shown by the sawmill at [[Hieropolis]], [[Asia Minor]], involving a frame saw that is operated by a crank and connecting rod.