Technology
Between barge and boat well is the undershot water wheel, which is driven by the flowing water of the current. There is also evidence of water mills for which both sides had a narrower water wheel, similar to an old paddle steamer. The floating platform is anchored at the most intense point in the current, to the bridge piers for easy access to the mill, or to the shore.
Floating allows the mill to operate with the same power despite changing water levels. The efficiency of the mill can at best match a standard undershot mill. Ship mills could potentially run full-time, good for tasks that demanded constant power.
Ship mills could be drawn when needed (due to shipping, rafting, ice) to shore. In central Europe ship mills were, as most water and wind mills, owned by lords or monasteries. Ship mills in Central Europe have not remained; after the advent of riverboat traffic, they became a hindrance. Ship mills last about fifty years.
Read more about this topic: Ship Mill
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“Primitive peoples tried to annul death by portraying the human body—we do it by finding substitutes for the human body. Technology instead of mysticism!”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push it forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)
“Technology is not an image of the world but a way of operating on reality. The nihilism of technology lies not only in the fact that it is the most perfect expression of the will to power ... but also in the fact that it lacks meaning.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)