The Romans were masters of hydrology and used this knowlege to engineer vast aqueduct systems to supply water to urban areas. At one time Britain possessed this level of knowledge and technology. I find it interesting that this skill was passed on to medievel institutions. The more we learn about the “Dark Ages”, the more clear it becomes that the shift from a Roman civilization to Saxon England was much more gradual than we have been led to believe. We have been led astray by the absence of written records.
Speaking of Roman hydrology, most people point to the aqueducts which were truly marvels of precision engineering.
However, there is something even more interesting in Spain. The Romans found a mountain that contained deep gold seams. In order to get it out, they constructed a 10 miles long aqueduct from a mountain lake to the top of the mountain, then drilled into the top and used the water from the aqueduct as a water drill to hollow out the mountain’s gold seams.
I saw this on Discover or the History channel once and found a webstie about it on Google but I can’t remember the name of the site. Unfortunately, it is in Spanish.
That, as well as the "renaissance/enlightenment" chroniclers' habit of disparaging or ignoring everything that occurred in Europe between the fall of Rome and the glorious advent of themselves.
Sort of like today's MSM.
Mr. niteowl77
Roman engineering per se mostly died out after they pulled out, not least because of the economic/trade disruptions during the waves of barbarians heading west from Central Asia as the climate cooled. But that the particular Roman canal survives and still has water in it probably speaks to having been maintained (to some degree) as well as having been well-built in the first place.
OTOH, the Romans built a number of stone bridges throughout Britain, and those vanished, I think entirely, plundered for their building stone. There’s a phenomenon called a “birdfoot”; during the Middle Ages the final slopes toward the riverbank received a longer, slower, less steep lane which were easier to use with carts. The original bridges were gone at the bottom of the hills, and after descent, these new paths either made back to the original spot, or more likely made for a ford. The Romans built bridges on the most direct line, by and large, and that wasn’t necessarily the shallow spot.
canal of Drusus, in the Netherlands:
http://www.livius.org/ga-gh/germania/drusiana.html
wth, more about Drusus:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Nero_Drusus