I need to see the that canal. Canals amaze me. Really.
Literally.
Why? Hmmm.
Cuz they have water in them? Where there wasn't? Any? It's like cheating. It is cheating.
You need to get a boat over dry land. Or up over a hill. So you cheat. That's what engineering is; cheating. Show me when Engineering isn't Cheating. It's the first thing they do. "We need to do this, .....uhm.....to cheat, kind of. We need to get this train over this river. And it can't swim."
[There are some people, I think more than we realize, who would never think of cheating. We used to call them girls; now we call them Amish or something.]
Then there's the Locks, themselves. They are SO COOL. That is a simple enough, and elegant enough, idea, that even Paul can understand it. "The water starts from upstream, and it fills this thing, when they close the gates, and bwoop! The boat comes up!
The first guy or girl who pictured that, maybe in the Precambian Period? Silvonian or whatever? WOW!
They KNEW it would work! They could see it in their mind! ZOINK!
"Oh my god!" [Slaps forehead.]
"Look! With this very same water coming down the stream ~ you don't have to get different water ~ you can put the boat or raft on there and LIFT IT UP! Oh my GOD!"
"Gup."
"It's a big fat heavy boat, but it's FLOATING!! UP!"
"Guh."
Sheesh. |
