Wind-powered dredger

In 1806, to prevent the silting up of the Charente River, the young marine engineering officer Jean-Baptiste Hubert constructed a windmill to dredge the entrance to the double dry dock of the arsenal at Rochefort. The wind energy produced powered a dredger working to and fro between the gate of the dry dock and a platform on the river. But Hubert’s construction had other uses. The windmill worked a lead rolling mill on its bottom floor and pigment crushers with four pestles for producing ship’s paint on its third floor. Hubert’s windmill, and its versatile use of the energy produced, was a major step in the arsenal’s technical development in the early 19th century, as highlighted by the prestigious provenance of this cut-away model, the Académie des Sciences.