The overhead water wheel used for crushing rocks in mining (1521)
This drawing illustrates how power from a waterwheel can be connected to a shaft. The shaft could then be connected to and operate a bellows in a smelter. From the work De Re Metallica, written by Georgius Agricola and printed in 1556. The drawing shows a section of a larger and more advanced smelting works than the one apparently used in Norway two or three centuries earlier.