User talk:Bloomjo

Paper mills
Hello. You wrote "it all depends on whether one believes that a paper mill has to be water powered." That is a good point, although to what else then can the term "mill" refer to? Reasonably, I'd maintain, only to animal-powered installations, but it can certainly not extend to pure manual methods, such as the pounding with hand pestles. So, Mr. Bloom must have meant either animal-powered or water-driven mills, but the problem is he provided real evidence for neither. Note that I did not include the Bloom reference in the article, but another editor who wanted to demonstrate that water-powered paper mills were indeed well known in Islamic papermaking. I think that the whole discussion on the early history of the use of waterpower in papermaking is thoroughly confused by the unwillingness (or carelessness) of many authors to properly define a "mill". Mr. Burns is to be given credit that he recognized the flawed terminology and clearly adressed the problem. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:20, 26 March 2010 (UTC)