Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885
Various
Science -- Periodicals
a great part of it was situated upon a hill, was more difficult to supply
with water than any of the rest, and which, at the same time, from its
size, its great importance, and the fact that it was the favorite summer
residence of several of the Roman emperors, and notably of Claudius, who
was born there, and who had a palace on the top of the hill, must of
necessity be supplied with plenty of water, and that too from a
considerable height. I refer to Ludgunum (now Lyons), then the capital of
Southern Gaul. This city was built by Lucius Munatius Plaucus, by order
of the Senate in A.U.C. 711. Augustus went there in A.U.C. 738, and
afterward lived there from 741 to 744. It was he who raised it to a very
high rank among Roman cities. It had its forum near the top of the hill
now called Fourvieres (probably a corruption of Forum Vetus), an imperial
place on the summit of the same hill, public baths, an amphitheater, a
circus, and temples.
In order to supply this city with water, standing as it did on the side
of a hill at the junction of two great rivers (now Rhone and Saone), it
was necessary to search for a source at a sufficient height, and this
Plaucus found in the hills of Mont d'Or, near Lyons, where a plentiful
supply of water was found at a sufficient height, viz., that of nearly
2,000 ft. above the sea. From this point an aqueduct, sometimes called
from its source the aqueduct of Mont d'Or, and sometimes the aqueduct of
Ecully, from the name of a large plain which it crossed, was constructed,
or rather two subterranean aqueducts were made and joined together into
one, which crossed the plain of Ecully, in a straight line still
underground; but the ground around Lyons was not like the Campagna, near
Rome, and it was necessary to cross the broad and deep valley now called
La Grange, Blanche. This, however, did not daunt the Roman engineers;
making the aqueduct end in a reservoir on one side of the valley, they
carried the water down into the valley, probably by means of lead pipes,
in the manner which will be described more at length further on, across
the stream at the bottom of the valley by means of an aqueduct bridge 650
ft. long, 75 ft. high, and 28½ ft. broad, and up the other side into
another reservoir, from which the aqueduct was continued along the top of
a long series of arches to the reservoir in the city, after a course of
about ten miles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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