HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one whose location has not been definitely established.

Traditionally they were said to have been built in the ancient city of Babylon, near present-day Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the World are documented to have been built approximately 2500 years ago in 600 BC. 

Documents state that the gardens were built for King Nebakanezer II, king of Babylon for 43 years. 

Nebakanezer 's wife, Amytis, was missed her hometown when she moved to Babylon. 

Babylon was very flat and dry, with very little rain and therefore had very little greenery. Her hometown was very mountainous, so Nebakanezer had the gardens built for her so it would resemble where she used to live. 

The gardens were huge and contained many types of flowers, fruit, animals, and waterfalls, which were said to have been from places all over the world. The gardens were supposedly built about thirty miles south of Baghdad, Iraq, along the Euphrates River (Hanging, 2008).

hanging-gardens-and-great-pyramids-winners-wonders-world-minecraft-challenge

Documentation of the gardens explains how the gardens were built. They were planted along a hill and had many different levels. Not only were the plants and flowers amazing, but also the technology used to water them. 

The Babylonians created a water pump that transported water from the Euphrates River up to the Hanging Gardens. 

They created the pump by attaching buckets to a chain. 

The chain was connected to two big wheels at the top and bottom. 

These would allow the chain to come back up after it went to the bottom to retrieve the water. 

Slaves powered the chain by pulling it so that it would continue to move. 

As the chain moved, the buckets would go into the river and fill with water. 

They tipped over at the top of the pump so that the high gardens could be reached and irrigated. 

The water traveled down channels so that all of the plants could be watered.

A historian by the name of Philo, described these water pumps:

The Hanging Garden has plants cultivated above ground level, and the roots of the trees are embedded in an upper terrace rather than in the earth.

The whole mass is supported on stone columns.

Streams of water emerging from elevated sources flow down sloping channels.

These waters irrigate the whole garden saturating the roots of plants and keeping the whole area moist.

Hence the grass is permanently green and the leaves of trees grow firmly attached to supple branches.

This is a work of art of royal luxury and its most striking feature is that the labor of cultivation is suspended above the heads of the spectators.

Evidence of these pumps may have been discovered in 1899 by the archeologist, Robert Koldewey.

He found stone ruins that fit the description of the documentation of the gardens.
Documentation stated that only two structures in this area were created using stone.

These were the Hanging Gardens and one other structure, which had already been discovered.
So, Koldewey thought he had discovered the gardens.

He also discovered a room with three big holes that he was convinced this had been part of the water chain pump.

The structure that Koldewey found was around 100 by 150 fifty feet. 

This is not near as big as documents have claimed, but it is still amazing for that time period.

In order to preserve the building from water damage, the gardens were built with big stone foundations that were covered with lead. 

This would protect the foundation from all the water that was constantly flowing down. 

Much of the gardens were built using clay bricks which had been set outside to be dried by the sun. 

Soil for the plants to grow was placed on top of the stone and clay bricks. 

Some documentation states that the stones were eighty feet tall and stretched 400x400 feet, or three acres. 

Other documentation says the gardens were over 300 feet tall.

Some people believe that the ruins of another building, which was named the Vaulted Building, are the remains of the Hanging Gardens. 

There is a hole which some believe was used as a well, which people suggest could have been used for the irrigation system. 

The problem with this theory, is that the Vaulted Building would have been too far away from the Euphrates River. 

Technology during that time period was not advanced enough to carry water that far away, which would have been thousands of feet. 

Until more evidence of ruins is found, people will continue to speculate that the Vaulted Building could be the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or that maybe the gardens didn't exist at all

HOOVER DAM

1ST INDUSTRIAL WONDER

Official name :HOOVER DAM
Location         :Clark County, Nevada / Mohave County, Arizona, US
Purpose :Power, flood control, water storage, regulation, recreation

Status In use
Construction began :1931
Opening date :1936
Construction cost :$49 million ($811 million with inflation)
Owner(s)         :United States Government

Dam and spillways
Type of dam :Concrete gravity-arch
Height :726.4 ft (221.4 m)
Length :1,244 ft (379 m)
Crest width :45 ft (14 m)
Base width :660 ft (200 m)
Volume :3,250,000 cu yd (2,480,000 m3)
Crest elevation :1,232 ft (376 m)
Impounds         :Colorado River
Type of spillway :2 x controlled drum-gate
Spillway capacity :400,000 cu ft/s (11,000 m3/s)

                                                                        DAM FORMS

HOOVER DAMS GENERATORS

BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE

6TH INDUSTRIAL WONDER

Nearly 200 years after it was first built, the Bell Rock Lighthouse still stands - proudly flashing its warning light.

Eleven miles out to sea off the east coast of Scotland, it is a remarkable sight - a white stone tower over 30m (100ft) high, rising seemingly without support out of the North Sea.

According to legend, the rock is called Bell Rock because of a 14th century attempt by the Abbot of Arbroath to install a warning bell on it.
The oldest existing rock Lighthouse in the British Isles is the tower on the Bell, or Inchcape, Rock a long and treacherous reef lying in the North Sea, some 12 miles East of Dundee and in the fairway of vessels plying to and from the Firths of Tay and Forth.


Even in the old days, this rock had proved to be a danger to navigation.
In his account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, Robert Stevenson, Engineer to the Board, stated "there is a tradition that an Abbot of Aberbrothock directed a bell to be erected on the Rock, so connected with a floating apparatus, that the winds and sea acted upon it, and tolled the bell, thus giving warning to the mariner of his approaching danger.
Upon similar authority, the bell, it is said, was afterwards carried off by pirates, and the humane intentions of the Abbot thus frustrated" Robert Stevenson went on however to state "of the erection of the bell, and the machinery by which it was rung, if such ever existed, it would have been interesting to have some authentic evidence.

But, though a search has been made in the cartularies of the Abbey of Aberbrothock, preserved in the Advocates' Library, and containing a variety of grants and other deeds, from the middle of the 13th to the end of the 15th century, no trace is to be found of the Bell Rock, or anything connected with it.

The erection of the bell is not however an improbable conjecture; and we can more readily suppose that an attempt of that kind was made..."

The erection of a permanent seamark on the Bell Rock presented some difficult structural problems.

The surface of the rock is uncovered only at low water while at high water it is submerged to a depth of some 16 feet.
Under Construction Work on the excavation of the rock was begun in 1807 but it was not until February 1811 that the light was first exhibited.

The tower which is of stone quarried from Mylnfield, near Dundee, and from Rubislaw, Aberdeen, is 115 feet in height, 42 feet is the diameter at the base, tapering to 15 feet in diameter at the top. It is of solid dovetailed masonry for the first 30 feet, half of which is below high water and above are 5 chambers and the light room.

 The original optical system used at the Bell Rock consisted of twenty four parabolic reflectors 25 inches in diameter with their inner surfaces silvered to better Plan of masonary reflect the light.

Each reflector had, located at the focus, an argand lamp having a circular wick of three quarters of an inch diameter.
The reflectors were arranged in a rectangle with seven located on each of the major sides.

The ten reflectors on the minor sides had red glass discs fitted to the outer rims such that the light emitted from these would be red in colour.

The whole apparatus was caused to revolve by the action of a clockwork arrangement powered by a weight descending through the tower.

As the optical system revolved a distinctive character of alternating red and white light was seen. This was the first revolving light in Scotland

The parabolic reflectors were later replaced by a 1st Order Fresnel lens in which a paraffin vapour burner provided the illuminant.

The PV burner was replaced by an electric lamp in the mid 1960s.
A Dalen optic in which a gas light is burned in a lens system was installed during 1988 with a range of 18 miles, the character is flashing white every 5 seconds, replacing the existing electric light installed in 1964.
The Lighthouse was demanned on the 26 October 1988 and is now remotely monitored from 84 George Street, Edinburgh.

Bellrock under construction During the first and second World Wars, the lighthouse exhibited a light when ships were expected to pass the Inchape reef which runs for 2,000 feet across shipping routes of the Firths of Tay and Forth.

It was on 27 October 1915 when the Captain of the "ARGYLL" (10,850 tons) one of the Devonshire Class Armoured Cruisers, sent out a routine signal to the Admiral Commanding the Coast of Scotland at Rosyth, requesting the Bell Rock be lit on the night of 27/28 October.