Posted on 03/13/2009 8:35:55 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Roman engineers chipped an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria. The monumental effort took more than a century, says the German researcher who discovered it... The tunnel begins in Syria and runs 64 kiometers above ground before going below the surface in three lengths of one, 11 and 94 kilometers... The tunnel was discovered by Mathias Döring, a hydromechanics professor in Darmstadt, Germany... Qanat Firaun, "Canal of the Pharaohs," is what the locals call the weathered old pipeline. There are even rumors that gold is hidden in the underground passageways that run up to 80 meters (262 feet) below the surface... It begins in an ancient swamp in Syria, which has long since dried out, and extends for 64 kilometers on the surface before it disappears into three tunnels, with lengths of 1, 11 and 94 kilometers. The longest previously known underground water channel of the antique world -- in Bologna -- is only 19 kilometers long... The soldiers chiseled over 600,000 cubic meters of stone from the ground -- or the equivalent of one-quarter of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. This colossal waterworks project supplied the great cities of the "Decapolis" -- a league originally consisting of 10 ancient communities -- with spring water.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
Roman engineers chipped an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities... underground passageways that run up to 80 meters (262 feet) below the surface... It begins in an ancient swamp in Syria, which has long since dried out, and extends for 64 kilometers on the surface before it disappears into three tunnels, with lengths of 1, 11 and 94 kilometers.
The USA is due a big water works project. But its probably 20 years off. It’ll have to wait until portable thorium reactors collapse the cost of electricity and much more efficient membranes collapse the cost of desalination.
What will happen will be that in order stop the flooding of the Mississippi River, from March to June, the top 10-20 feet of water above the Red River will be skimmed off and pumped west. (The Red River dirt and waters south provides the dirt for the Mississippi delta,)These waters will be pumped to eastern Colorado to refill the Ogalala aquifer and also over South mountain or the Front Range in Colorado to supply more water for the Colorado basin.
At the same time desalination plants on the gulf and pacific coasts will desalinate water and pump it inland to south and west texas, southern California deserts and the dry lands of eastern Oregon and Washington.
OMG, think of all the pollution that would result if any of the contents of that pipeline/tunnel leaked out!
The Decapolis cities were Greek colonies founded in Hellenistic times. The Romans encouraged their growth and Romanized many of them as bulwarks of Greco-Roman civilization in the East.
Cool concept!!
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