HERE ARE SOME OF THE ANSWERS:
1.The big wheel with the flat outside gives it away. These gears were driven by a belt. This was very common

2.I think there was a mine…and that machine was a part of an elevator in the XIX.century…or a saw mill

3.It looks like the remains of an old gristmill. Those gears would be used to change the speed of a particular apparatus. That would be needed if the gristmill was big enough to have several machines operating at the same time off one water wheel.

4.There are two shafts in this assembly. The primary, or drive-shaft, is powered by a wide belt that turns the large pulley (someone referred to it as a “flat gear” omg. wrong on multiple counts!) The pinion gear on the drive shaft is turning the large bull gear on the second shaft which also includes a large drum feature that is used to spool cable.This is a winch mechanism that could have been part of elevator for a mine. It could have been part of a tram line that pulled ore cars or logs along a a railway system.Wherever this artifact is located, its purpose is well known and information about its real purpose will be documented by the company that built and operated it.

5.It’s an intergalactic spacecraft transmission module.

6.The workings at a mine. Hauling at a mine or for pumping water out of the mine. A bit too large for an air pump into a mine. Or possibly an ore crusher at a mine. Some old miner will probably correct us all. I’ve seen these at 10 thousand feet at mines in Colorado and hauled in pieces on the back of donkeys or mules. Or Men. They just don’t make men like that anymore.

7.Looking at the flat gear seems it musta been a belt drive, looking at the age of that brick and the fact it has a belt drive it may have had a steam powered operating mechanism to run it back in the day, looking at the size of the gears and the gear reduction my guess is that it may have possibly controlled a small dam or a large valve.

8.I’m sure there was a river there at one time and they created some type of pump or electrical power or something because that’s all that could be

9.The first idea that entered my mind was a mechanism that would lift a huge & heavy wall or gate….

10.Old flat belt drive unit for a punch press, the clutch is visible on the right side of the flat belt wheel which drives the small pinion gear that drives the big bow gear in the center. I guessing this drive unit was stored outside in the backyard of a factory?

11.The wheel on the far right is meant to have a belt looped around it. The belt is what allowed power to be delivered to that wheel or that wheel used the belt to drive other mechanics.the grooved thing in the middle…. Is the gearing. It would have allowed for the change in speeds at which the wheels turned or some engine drove a gear that’s now missing that turned the wheels that powered the belts.
The far left looks like another belt wheel.
My personal guess, it’s for a textile mill or factory it’s not for a lumber mill, and if it were for a stamp mill, the stamps would be there. Need to know where it is, check property records and then we can know. It’s like looking at an engine, you can see it but was it in a car or a pickup truck, a Ford or a Chrysler?
12.In the 1950’s at a lake near Stafford Springs Connecticut there was one back in the woods.

12.Pully that ran a big belt to transfer trees or Orr from one area to another place to process seen one in more complete state

13.It’s okay I’ll help u all here… this is a old mining equipment used to bring stone ect up.

14.Isn’t this a sugar cane mill. It looks like the botanical gardens in Mauritius

15.Have seen in the past, don’t recall much except I believe this is in one of the southern states, an old plantation perhaps, a cane mill, can’t be 100 percent about that and perhaps this is post civil war.