9/9/2012

a Victorian mansion located in the engrish countryside

Deep in the engrish countryside, this Victorian mansion is …

KyotoDailyPhoto on Twitpic—Although it has the appearance of a Victorian mansion, this building is actually one of the old Biwa Canal’s a pumping stations. In 1895 the canal supplied Japan’s first public hydroelectric power generator.

Posted by Taro in Arts/Culture, General, Not exactly news but it's news to me | 3 Comments »

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3 Responses to “a Victorian mansion located in the engrish countryside”

1. Kyoto Daily Photo @KyotoDailyPhoto Says:
   September 9th, 2012 at 8:47 am

   Also related…

   This rather ominous door belongs to the tunnel that brings the Lake Biwa Canal (琵琶湖疏水) from Mii-dera…
   
   Kyoto Daily Photo @KyotoDailyPhoto..

2. dimwit Says:
   September 9th, 2012 at 11:12 pm

   Geez Taro are you stalking me again? I was just there a few months ago.

   You didn’t mention the Roman aqueduct or the boat rail that links the upper and lower canal. The entire structure is a fascinating piece of Victorian engineering designed by Sakuro Tanabe who trained under Henry Dyer.

   A good account of the story of it construction can be found here.

   http://www.coloradojijo.com/topics/topics.htm

3. Taro Says:
   September 10th, 2012 at 12:08 am

   Dimwit wrote:
   Are you stalking me again?

   No, you are stalking me (with coincidences).
   •My home in the States is now in Colorado—My cabin looks down over the spot in the Roaring Fork River where the first generator was set up.
   •The Kyoto generator was copied and also used in Yokohama: I walked by it everyday on my way to work.
   •The original version of that Pelton wheel generator in Massachusetts mentioned in the coloradojijo.com story was designed my great grand uncle.

   ….in 1887, two years after the project was started, Tanabe stumbled on information that was to lead him to Colorado and change the entire nature of the Kyoto project. Kobu College was receiving various publications from the United States and Tanabe, thumbing through them, learned that a low dam had been built across a stream near Holyoke, Mass., to divert water into something called a Pelton wheel to generate electricity…more…
   http://www.coloradojijo.com/topics/topics.htm

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