----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian J Goggin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 1:18 PM Subject: [canals-list] Soliton
> In 1844 James Johnson MD, Physician to the Late King, published *A > Tour in Ireland; with Meditations and Reflections*. During his tour he > had travelled by horse-drawn fly-boat along the Grand Canal from > Dublin. On the Long Level (15 lock-free miles) he noted that: > > "Having reached the highest level of the great table-land, we > traversed a space of fifteen miles without a lock; and here a curious > phenomenon, illustrating the incompressibility of water, arrested our > attention. About every twenty or thirty minutes, the horses are > obliged to stop for five or six minutes, to take breath, the cause of > which was this: --- The velocity of the boat impelled the water with > such force that it gradually rose so as to approach the summits of the > banks, when it began to recoil, so as actually to form a back-water or > stream, when the horses were unable to make head, and therefore > stopped until the equilibrium of the canal was restored." > > I have not heard of that phenomenon before. Has anyone else come > across it? > > bjg > I wonder if Scott Russell was the first to identify a Soliton? have a look at http://www.ma.hw.ac.uk/~chris/scott_russell.html The aqueduct over the Edinburgh City Bypass near where Scott Russell was supposed to have noticed the Soliton is called Scott Russell aqueduct. A mine of useless information :-) Ann
