A particular categorical use of windmills that you saw in Holland as well as in some places in the remainder of Europe was pumping water. Remember that a large part of the land in the country is basically below sea level, so water pumps would get quite a lot of use, especially if a dike was breached.

It isn’t surprising, then, that it was also the Dutch who made so many refinements to windmill technology, especially to the huge sails. The majority of these involved altering the shape, to make the sails more aerodynamic. When the cutting edge has a curve, like that at the front edge of an aeroplane wing, it provides more lift. And placing the center of gravity of the sail and arm 25% of the distance back from the leading edge is another element that makes the sail more efficient. These and other changes were implemented in the Netherlands as the country made these windmills characteristically its own.

One might think that since the change over to other types of power, during and after the commercial Revolution, there would now be no more windmills in Holland. But that is not the case. There remain a few, maybe one thousand or so, and all those are in working order. In truth, Holland doesn’t officially count a mill unless it is still usable, and programs of restoration recently have truly increased the number. So while the big thrust for wind power these days is the tall wind turbine, some things remain for this more modest type of windmill to do. Obviously, the Dutch convention is so strong and so good that the windmill of Holland has passed the test of time.

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Wind power has been used to accomplish many human jobs over the centuries, but one country has been associated with its use closer than any other in history. That country is the Netherlands.

When bladed windmills were used in the Middle East and China, they tended most often to have a vertical axis, a shaft that stood up straight with the attached “sails” also vertical, standing out from that central shaft. But by the point this powerful tool moved into Europe, the axis had gone horizontal, regularly sticking out from the side of a building that contained large gears that translated the motion into helpful work within. This was known as a “tower mill,” and it was actually the Dutch who took that concept and just about perfected it.

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In a tower mill, the horizontal shaft came out of the building on one side, near to the top. On the upper floor resided the big gear wheels that turned assorted tools on lower floors, like the big stones that would grind grain. Often someone known as a “wind smith” would live on the bottom floor of the windmill with his folks, or in a dwelling attached to the side of the main building. He would be the one that maintained the mill, actually furling the sails during tempests, or maybe manually turning the apex of the building so that the sails would be oriented into the wind if its direction changed.

There had been a great deal of useful work indeed for the windmills to do in Holland, and shortly they were dotted all over the landscape. It is calculated that at one previous point there were 9,000 to 10,000 operating windmills in the country. Just like others in the remainder of Europe, a huge proportion were used to grind grain, powering single or multiple grinding stones. As trade increased, a few of these mills also processed new commodities like cocoa or spices from other parts of the world. And a few others even served as saw mills.