Dog Power

From the American Artifacts web site, a collection of images of dog, horse, and sheep treadmills once employed to power heavy machinery. Turn-of-the-century cabinet maker Henry William Winter used a dog-powered lathe to carve spindles for his mass-produced furniture. A special breed, known appropriately enough as the turnspit (now apparently extinct), was employed especially for the purpose of turning roasting spits in 19th century Britain. The Dog Engine, shown above, was described in the late 1880s in the journal Nature as having been created by one M. Richards of Paris, who used each dog to power four sewing machines intermittently. The Nature article added: “This method always arouses grave objections, from the point of view of humanity as well as mechanics.”



[Acknowledgements to the wonderful Museum of Retro Technology and American Artifacts]
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