Posted on 06/26/2002 6:43:11 PM PDT by JameRetief
| Tuesday, June 25, 2002 |
Mysterious Pipes Left by 'ET' Reported from Qinghai |
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| The widespread news of mysterious iron pipes at the foot of Mount Baigong, located in the depths of the Qaidam Basin, Qinghai Province, has roused concern from related departments. Some experts believe that these might be relics left behind by extraterrestrial beings (ET), for the site, with its high altitude and thin, crisp air, has long been held as an ideal place to practice astronomy. Three caves are found at the foot of Mount Baigong. Two of them have collapsed and are inaccessible. The middle one is the biggest, with its floor standing two meters above the ground and its top eight meters above the ground.  This cave is about six meters in depth, a little like a cave dug out by human beings, with pure sand and rock inside. What is astonishing is inside for there is a half-pipe about 40 centimeters in diameter tilting from the top to the inner end of the cave. Another pipe of the same diameter goes into the earth with only its top visible above the ground. At the opening of the cave there are a dozen pipes at the diameter between 10 and 40 centimeters run into the mount straightly, showing high fixing technique. About 80 meters away from the caves is the shimmering Toson Lake, on whose beach 40 meters away, many iron pipes can be found scattered on sands and rocks. They run in the east-west direction with a diameter between 2 and 4.5 centimeters. They are of various strange shapes and the thinnest is like a toothpick, but not blocked inside after years of sand movement. More strange is that there are also some pipes in the lake, some reaching above water surface and some buried below, with similar shapes and thickness with those on the beach. By PD Online Staff Member Li Heng |
Contrary to common opinion, the Romans had several systems for the supply and drainage of water. And they preferred small-scale provisions such as cesspits, wells and rainwater tanks.
The residents only constructed a water supply network or a sewerage system if small-scale systems were not effective.
Research carried out at the University of Nijmegen in The Netherlands reveals that the Romans came up with various, often pragmatic, solutions to their water problems.
For example, the Italian town of Ostia has many wells but no cesspits. The groundwater there is too high for cesspits. The water would seep through the piled up stones of the cesspit and that would cause a filthy mess. Therefore Ostia has a sewerage system.
The sewer in Ostia is particularly beautiful and has remained perfectly intact. It is so well preserved because it has always remained underground, and that is still the case. The only disadvantage is that it is full of toads. This makes research in the sewer something of an Indiana Jones experience, especially as it is easy to get lost in it.
In Herculaneum, like Ostia, a Roman town, the inhabitants did not construct such cesspits. The ground there is too rocky for draining away urine and feces.
Pompeii, the third city visited by the archaeologists, has both a sewer and a drainage system for rainwater. The latter is currently being examined in the Netherlands.
Small elevations in the streets of Pompeii guided away the rainwater. Sometimes the elevations were not enough and the inhabitants chose to allow the rainwater to flow through the sewer. For example, at the forum, the central square, rainwater flows into the sewer for the simple reason that people did not want the inconvenience of rainwater on such a lively square.
According to the researchers, we cannot learn much more from the Romans. Even though some of the inventions are ingenious, hygiene, for example, is much better now. Although many Romans had their own toilet, they repeatedly used the same sponge cleaned with water instead of toilet paper.
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The widespread news of mysterious iron pipes at the foot of Mount Baigong, located in the depths of the Qaidam Basin, Qinghai Province of northwest China, has roused concern from related departments.