936 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE tium and Hero’s Pneumática as well as other sources, she analyzes the conceptual development of the discipline as a technical science for the improvement of human life. The main body of the work consists of systematic overviews of seven areas in which mechanical knowledge was fundamentally important. The author uses evidence from both textual and archaeological sources. One chapter is devoted to war machines, primarily siege machinery. A second treats ancient agriculture, including water supply and transport, pumps, mills, and presses for wine and oil. It includes an interesting section on the Ptolemaic agrarian policies that encouraged technical developments in a number of areas. A third chapter, on cargo transport, treats lifting devices such as cranes and the transport of heavy weights such as the stone blocks used in monumental building projects. A fourth chapter treats devices for use in the symposium. Schürmann first describes the importance of the symposium for ancient societies. Its accoutrements, to which Philo and Hero devoted much space, included washstands, wine dispens ers, lamps, automata, automatic theaters, and the water organ. A chapter is devoted to objects of religious use, such as automata for processions and festivals. Another, concerning public time measure ment, treats water clocks and the tower of the winds in Athens. Finally, a chapter is devoted to precision instruments, including the planetarium of Archimedes, the dioptra (a surveying instrument), and the hodometer. Schürmann describes how particular machines worked, and nu merous carefully chosen diagrams elucidate her textual explanations. It is her ability both to analyze the technical workings of mechanical devices and to show their social and political significance that makes this an outstanding study. With its detailed footnotes and a compre hensive bibliography, this is simply the best treatment now available of the whole range of Greek mechanical thought. Pamela O. Long Dr. Long's work in progress, "Openness, Secrecy, Authorship, Intellectual Property: Studies in Prcniodcrn T raditions in the Practical and Military Arts,” includes a chapter on ancient technical and military literature. Die Geschichte des Wasserbaus in der Schweiz. By Niklaus Schnitter. Oberbozberg: Olynthus, 1992. Pp. 242; notes, bibliography, index. Switzerland, like California, needs men to match its mountains. And some of the most important of these men (or women) were the hydraulic engineers who developed the country’s huge water re sources. In this book, Niklaus Schnitter, like his father Gerold an outstanding Swiss hydraulic engineer, provides an illuminating his tory of Swiss hydraulic engineering. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 937 Each chapter has brief—indeed, irritatingly brief—summaries of the contents in French and English. The summaries hardly dojustice to the chapters, which are crammed full of data, much unfamiliar even to specialists in the history of hydraulic engineering. The book covers all aspects of the subject, including the development of urban water distribution systems, aqueducts to convey water to farmlands (yes, even in Switzerland!), flood protection, navigation canals, port development, hydropower (mills and turbines), land reclamation, and contributions to the sciences of hydraulics and soil mechanics. Schnitter begins his history with Roman engineering, primarily waterworks for towns and military camps, and then addresses the introduction of waterwheels. His discussion of medieval develop ments extends to ponds for fish production which date back to the 12th century and to early public water supply systems. In the late medieval period, the author points out, ponds were also built to supply water for flax fields, which required substantial amounts of moisture. Still later, retention basins were used for the fluming of timber. As urban population exploded in 19th-century Switzerland, engi neers and public officials sought ways to maintain an adequate water supply of good quality. First they transported water from nearby lakes and then, as demand continued to grow, from sources further away. To protect public health in late-19th-century Zurich, the city engineer (and later honorary doctor of medicine) Arnold Burkli insisted on developing a network of reservoirs and pumping stations that would deliver a minimum of 190 liters of water per person per day; today, the system delivers around 600 liters per person daily. Schnitter appreciates the connections between land use and flood ing. As Switzerland...
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Aug 1, 2001
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