Disappearing Rivers

The Greek island of Samos off the coast of Turkey is—and has been since the Mediterranean filled with water—subject to the quintessential Mediterranean climate. Think central California chaparral. Warm, moistish winters, hot dry summers. Very few permanent water sources.


On Samos there was a permanent stream, presumably with a nice wetland dominated by willows and palms, populated by streamside birds, probably with endemic fish and invertebrates. Something of an idyllic Eden, a lot like the wetland adjoining Space Launch Complex 4 at Vendenberg Air Force Base where I used to work. It was an oasis in a desert, rich in life and history. I imagine the spring on Samos was a lot like that.


Unfortunately the capital city was on the other side of a mountain named Kastro, and the leader, formally called a tyrant (presumably without the present-day negative connotations, but you never know) named Polycrates assigned his chief engineer Eupalinos to find a frickin’ way to get the water to the city in a manner secure from opposing armies. Eupalinos wasn’t a simple-minded guy. His method was to start digging at both ends of the one kilometer mountain and hope to match up in the middle. Actually, he used a trick called a dogleg to make sure he could hook the tunnels up. But it was still the bronze age. They dug this tunnel with trowels and crowbars and buckets. And the aquaduct itself, of course, had to run downhill the whole way. 


Whoa nelly. They got it done. On time and on budget. Protecting the city’s water supply from military threat. 


It also, of course, destroyed the original watercourse and wetland. But the cool thing about dry climates is that biological residue lasts a long time. I’m betting a couple students with sieves and bottles and some cold retsina could find half a dozen extinct species easily by poking around the old watercourse for a week or two, and maybe some living representatives in the tunnel itself. I commend this field work to a master’s student seeking a historical biodiversity thesis project. I only request you let me use the material in my forthcoming book on military environmental history. Good digging!


New stuff around the weblog horn. See http://endoftheworldpartdeux.blogspot.com/ for the whiniest in cancer diaries, http://theresaturtleinmysoup.blogspot.com/ for some rock ‘em sock ‘em movies slugging it out, and http://docviper.livejournal.com/ for Bad Art By Dave.