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Roman Aqueducts
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Roman Aqueducts
Ryan Gaddis Pozzuolana and Roman Aqueducts Western Civilization to 1660 Roman engineering was mainly of the civil type. The Romans built roads, bridges, baths, stadiums, and other public buildings. One of the most amazing feats of engineering that the Romans achieved was the building of the aqueducts. An aqueduct is an artificial channel through which water is guided to the place where it is used. Most aqueducts of ancient times were built of stone, brick or pozzuolana, a mixture of limestone and volcanic dust. Rome itself had eleven aqueducts, ranging in length from 10 to 60 miles. They were all built between 312 BC and 226 AD. Rome was the only ancient city reasonably supplied with water. By A.D. 97, nine aqueducts brought about 85 million gallons of water per day from mountain springs. Frontinus, Roman was ardent concerning Rome's aqueducts: With such an array of indispensable structures carrying so many waters, compare, if you will, the idle Pyramids or the useless, though famous, works of the Greeks! While the Romans added almost nothing to pure science, they were masters of applied science. They had no understanding of formulas or tensile strength, but they could still figure out what worked and what didn't. Mostly, this was achieved by trial and error. The invention of pozzuolana was one such example. The early Roman cement was made of a wet mixture of lime and sand, with small pieces of stone, pottery, or tile embedded in it. This type of cement was u...
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