The Waterwheel

The Waterwheel. . , The waterwheel was the first tool used to harness a power source other than animals., The design is simple: water flows from a stream or reservoir against the wide paddles of a wheel. The wheel's rotating axle may turn machinery, a mill or a generator. By harnessing the power of moving water, the waterwheel made many difficult tasks easier to perform. This many centuries, this was the primary source of mechanical power., By the year 200 BCE (Before the Common Era) water-powered grist mills had began to appear in Egypt, and by the first century CE (Common Era) waterwheels were common throughout the Mediterranean coastal regions, probably brought there from China by way of Persia and Western Anatolia (now know as Turkey)., The type of waterwheel represented here was turned by hand to raise water from a reservoir to an aqueduct, which carried the water to irrigate fields., This waterwheel is a gift from Dawn and Andrew Green.