What Are Windmills Used For?

Windmill

A windmill is a machine that uses the power of the wind for pumping water and generating electric power.  A windmill is a machine that uses the power of the wind to do work of some kind.  In the United States, windmills are generally to be found on farms where they serve as a cheap source or power for pumping water from wells and driving electric generators for electric power.

The kind of windmill commonly used to bump well water has a big wheel with several blades.  It is usually mounted on tail tower so that the blades will catch the full force of the win.  A tall vane acts as a rudder and keeps the wheel facing into the wind.

By the means of gears, the turning wheel provides the power to work a pump, a small electric generator, or to do some other useful job.  Of course, a windmill is not of any use unless there is enough wind to turn it.  Today, many farmers don’t use windmills to get water from their wells.  They use electric pumps to do the work because they are more dependable.-Dick Rogers

Why Does The Panama Canal Have Lock?

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal locks are a series of water “steps” which lift ships 85 feet above sea level, and then lower them back down to the ocean at the other end of the canal.

The Panama Canal is a kind of water “stairway” that crosses the isthmus of Panama and connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

A series of locks, or water-filled chambers, raise and lower ship enters a lock from the Atlantic side, huge gates close behind it and water is let in.  The ship is raised till it floats at the same level as the next-higher lock.  Then the gates are opened and the ship is pulled to the next locks, and so on.

The licks raise the ship a 28-foot step at a time up to 85 feet above sea level.  When the ship reaches the upper lock, it sails across a large lake, which supplies water for the locks.  Locks on the Pacific side lower the ship to sea level. 

Before this shortcut was built, ships had to sail around the tip of South America, a journey of thousands of miles.  A ship can pass through the 50-mile canal in just hours, instead of taking many days for the longer route.–Dick Rogers

What Is Hard Water?

Water that contains large amounts of dissolved minerals that make it difficult for soap to lather is called “hard water.”

We usually think of water as an odorless and tasteless liquid.  But drinking water for example often has a definite odor and taste.

Pure water is never found in nature because water picks up and dissolves tiny bits of mineral matter whenever it flows.

Hard Water

“Hard water” is water which has dissolved large amounts of certain minerals.  Extra soap is needed for washing with hard water because the soap doesn’t readily form soapsuds.  The minerals also stick to the sides of pipes and boilers and form a hard crust-like scale.

Water containing fewer minerals and in which soap will make good suds is called “soft water.”

Hard water is softened by filtering it through water-softening machines which treat it with chemicals to remove the hardening minerals.

Sea water with large quantities of dissolved minerals, is very hard.  Rain water is quite soft.–Dick Rogers

How is nylon made?

Nylon

Nylon is a product of a chemical process in which carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen are united to form a strong, tough material.

Nylon is a strong, long-lasting synthetic material.  Its uses range from such things as shear hosiery and fishing lines to toothbrush bristles and molded parts for machinery.

Nylon is made from common elements obtained from coal (carbon) and air (oxygen and nitrogen) and water (hydrogen).  These elements are heated, mixed and treated to such a way that they are changed into a substance called “nylon salt.”  

The nylon salt becomes a thick, gooey liquid when it is heated.  The melted nylon is spread out into a thin sheet to cool.  When hard, the sheet is cut into chips.  The chips are then melted and manufactured into final products.

To make yarn for weaving stockings and fabrics for clothes, the melted nylon is pushed through time notes in a metal plate.  Several threads of nylon are then twisted together into a single yarn and then stretched to make the nylon strong.–Dick Rogers

What is the difference between a lake and a pond?

Lake

Generally, a pond is described as a small body of still water without an outlet.  Lakes are usually much larger and deeper and often are fed by rivers and streams.  Generally, lakes differ from ponds in size.

A lake is commonly descried as a large body of water with land all around it.

A pond is usually smaller than a lake.  It is a quiet pool of water so shallow that rooted plants often grow completely across it and the bottom is usually covered with mud.

The cool water in a lake is often too deep for plants to grow except around the shore.  What people know as a pond or a lake, however, may differ from one place to another.

Pond

In some places, for example, a pond may be called a marsh.  And some large bodies of water commonly known as seas are really lakes, such as the Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea.

The “bowl” that holds a lake or pond is called the basin.  The basins of ponds and lakes may get their water from rain or be filled with water that flows into them from rivers, streams, or sometimes even from underground springs.–Dick Rogers

What is cement made of?

People often misuse the words cement and concrete.  For example a “cement sidewalk” is really made of concrete.

Cement is the fine, gray powder that is mixed with water, sand and crushed rock or gravel to make concrete.  The cement and water from a paste that hardens as it dries, and binds the sand and gravel together into the hard, rock-like mass we use in building tail skyscrapers, smooth sidewalks and large bridges and dams.

Cement

Cement is made from lime and other materials, such as silica, alumina, iron and gypsum.   The lime used to make cement comes mainly from a rock called limestone.

Cement is made by burning crushed limestone with the other materials.  The heat changes the mixture into a new material called “clinkers.”  The clinkers are then finely ground into the gray, powdery cement.  After this, it is ready for use in masking concrete.

Before the concrete is mixed, workmen must measure the proper amounts of sand, gravel and water with the cement to give it the proper strength.  When first mixed, the wet concrete, called a “batch,” can be poured into molds of almost any shape.  It quickly hardens into a solid mass as hard as natural stone. – Dick Rogers

What is Artesian well?

Artesian Well

An artesian well needs no pump.  It spurts out of the ground like fountain.  There is more water in the world than in our oceans, lakes and streams.  A good deal of water can be found beneath the ground. 

Springs are formed when water from rain and melted snow seeps deep into the ground.  The underground water can fill the bottom of a well, or it can bubble out of the ground as a spring.

An artesian well is quite different from the ordinary well or spring.  In an ordinary well, the water must be pumped out with a pump.  An ordinary spring occurs when the underground water seeps downhill from the pull of gravity and bubbles out of the ground at some lower point.  It is only where the water gets trapped between layers of rocks or clay that artesian wells are possible.

Ask the imprisoned water collects between the layers of rock, the weight of the water may become so great that it builds up a great pressure.  When a well is dug, or if it finds a natural opening, the water gushes out without the aid of a pump or gravity.– Dick Rogers

What is an aqueduct?

A big city needs a lot of water.  Some cities are near big lakes or rivers.  They find it easy to get enough water.

But very often the lakes or reservoirs upon which a city depends for water are many miles from the city.  Then aqueduct must be built.

The word “aqueduct” comes from two Latin words which mean “water” and “to lead.”  An aqueduct, then, is a man-made channel to carry water from a lake or reservoir city.

Water and Lead

Some aqueducts are huge steel pipes laid above ground.  Others may be canals, open troughs or tunnels.

Most aqueducts gradually slope downhill so that the water flows by gravity.

In some cases, great metal siphons carry the water over hills, under rivers and across valleys, in much the same way you might siphon water from a bucket with a rubber hose.

Pumps may force the water through the aqueduct where it will not flow by gravity. – Dick Rogers