breast wheeln.

?1659 R. D'acres Elements Water-drawing iii. i. 28 The close bucketted wheels spend lesse water, and they are of three sorts, the close bucketted under-shot, which receive their charge below, the over-shot, and the elbow bucketted overshot, breast and ground, which is the best.]

1744 J. T. Desaguliers Course Exper. Philos. II. xii. 53 When there is not a Quantity of Water sufficient to turn an Undershot Wheel, nor Height enough to throw the Water down upon an Overshot, the Water is made to fall into the Buckets of a Wheel call'd a Breast-Wheel, about the Height of the Center of the Shaft, and to work by its Weight till it goes down to the Bottom where it runs out of the Wheel.

1760 J. Smeaton in Philos. Trans. 1759 (Royal Soc.) 51 137 To examine the effects when the impulse and weight are combined, as in the several kinds of breast-wheels, etc.

1831 D. Lardner Hydrostatics x. 203 A breast wheel partakes of the nature of the overshot and undershot wheels.

1914 Sci. Amer. 24 May 480/2 In the collection are overshot, undershot and breast wheels.

2009 P. M. Malone Waterpower Lowell i. 17 Breast wheels had become popular with New England manufacturers in the late eighteenth century because they handled moderate levels of backwater better than overshot wheels.