![]() Large diameter vertical wheels of Roman vintage, for raising water, have been excavated from the Rio Tinto mines in Southwestern Spain. It is known that they were also capable of building and operating mining equipment such as crushing mills and dewatering machines. hydraulic mining, and the building of reservoirs to hold the water needed at the minehead. They were also skilled in mining, building aqueducts needed to supply equipment used in extracting metal ores, e.g. A famous example occurs at Barbegal in southern France, where no fewer than 16 overshot mills built into the side of a hill were worked by a single aqueduct, the outlet from one feeding the mill below in a cascade. They built some of the first watermills outside of Greece for grinding flour and spread the technology for constructing watermills throughout the Mediterranean region. The Romans were among the first civilizations to harness the power of water. The Roman legions were largely responsible for building the aqueducts. Roman engineers used inverted siphons to move water across a valley if they judged it impractical to build a raised aqueduct. The aqueducts could stretch from 10–100 km (10–60 mi) long, and typically descended from an elevation of 300 m (1,000 ft) above sea level at the source, to 100 m (330 ft) when they reached the reservoirs around the city. De aquaeductu is the definitive two volume treatise on 1st century aqueducts of Rome, written by Frontinus. Most water was for public use, such as baths and sewers. Per capita water usage in ancient Rome matched that of modern-day cities like New York City or modern Rome. ![]() A thousand cubic metres (260,000 US gal) of water were brought into Rome by eleven different aqueducts each day.
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