“Out in the Bodie mining district, California, they have a peculiar motor in use. It is called an arastra, and consists of an overshot wheel operated by sand instead of water. A windmill runs a belt containing buckets, which carry the sand up to a big tank, just as grain elevators carry wheat in a flouring mill. A stream of sand is let out upon the overshot wheel and it revolves just as it would under the weight of a stream of water. The arastras move steadily at their work. When there is much wind, sand is stored up for use when calm weather prevails, so the arastras are never idle. It is perhaps needless to say that the sand is used because water is scarce. The arastra is an invention of a miner named Townsend.”
Quoted from: The Manufacturer and Builder, Volume 0016 Issue 2 (February 1884).
