When he asked his minister to approach Bessler and find out if he was genuine, I thought Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, was considering the possibility of employing Bessler's wheel to pump water to the top of a new ornamental cascade he had built in his Castle gardens. However there was always going to be the problem of how he could actually pump the water. An archimedes screw couldn't do it and there was no system available at that time that could raise the water more than a few feet.
So, I wondered, why did Karl go ahead and build the cascade if he had no way of pumping the water up to the top once it had fallen? The answer is simple and I saw it in action when I visited the famous Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, England where they have an almost identical cascade.
Chatsworth's cascade, built at exactly the same time as the Kassel cascade is set in the 105-acre garden of Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, the Duke of Devonshire's family home. The cascade, finally completed in 1701, is fed by four man-made lakes. The Cascade drops down over 200 vertical feet. All the waterworks in the garden are gravity-fed, with water piped from the lakes which are 400 feet higher than the house. The water flows down over the cascade to an ornamental lake where it powers a fountain with a jet of water approaching 300 feet in height!
Work on the Hesse-Kassel cascade began in 1701, inspired by Landgrave Karl's visit to a Villa in Italy. Just as at Chatsworth, the water runs down the cascades, a fall of about 300 feet, before pouring into a lake by the castle, to feed another fountain about 150 feet in height. This whole system is fed from reservoirs of rainwater and relies on gravity. Both these systems have been in place for more than 300 years.
So the reason for Karl's interest in Bessler's wheel was simply personal curiosity, just as he enjoyed Denis Papin's experiments on the lake near his castle in earlier times. In 1705 Papin developed a second steam engine with the help of Gottfried Leibniz, based on an invention by Thomas Savery, but this used steam pressure rather than atmospheric pressure. Details of the engine were published in 1707. During his stay in Kassel in Hesse, in 1704, he constructed a ship powered by his steam engine, mechanically linked to paddles. This made him the first to construct a steam-powered boat (or vehicle of any kind). [Thanks to wikipedia and others]
I think that Karl thought that, with Papin gone, similar scientific experiments might be made using Bessler's wheel. It also explains why Karl was not interested in buying the wheel - he had no use for it. He was well-known for his interest and understanding of the latest scientific theories and experiments.
JC
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I find Swan Island and the entire geographic surroundings of waterways and roads in Sudstadt, Kassel very intersting. The island is eight sided and the roads and waterways around the basin resemble a large pendulum. I wonder when the area was developed (before or after Bessler's death). Could it be Karl's way of telling Bessler's secret. I know there is a planetary connection to the area and with the temple on the island, but the view from above is very interesting indeed.
ReplyDeleteRick
I've seen this suggestion before Zoelra, but I'm not convinced. I have a good idea of how Bessler's wheel worked and I see nothing in the aerial shots (via google earth) of swan island and the neighbouring landscape that gives me any feeling that what you suggest might be true. Of course I might be wrong.
DeleteAlso I don't know when the area was landscaped, but if you can find out I'd be interested to know - I rule out nothing.
JC
I'm glad to hear you are still confident in your design. I'm going back to my neice's this weekend and will do a little Kiiking on their mini swing. It's unnearving to go too high. The CF at the bottom of the swing really makes it hard to stand so I look forward to seeing how you overcome this. Rick
DeleteI think that the main reason that Karl did not purchase Bessler's wheel was because the count could NOT afford to pay Bessler the price he demanded. Yes, Karl may have had enough to have purchased it, but he preferred to keep that money for his personal financial security (he was also probably supporting a mistress when he met Bessler). Thus, he wouldn't want to spend most of his fortune on an invention that might not be profitable in the future. Karl was well aware of the power output limitations of Bessler's wheels and how inadequate they would have been to pump all of that water back up to the reservoir lakes that fed his cascade at a sufficiently high enough rate.
ReplyDeleteYet, as you say, Karl was an intelligent man and what one might call a "dilettante" of science who supported the work of such innovators as Denis Papin. It would only have been natural for Karl to become fascinated with Bessler's wheels and to make sure he was working on them under his patronage. With Bessler, Karl had finally found someone who had actually done what no one prior had accomplished and which most of the "learned" men of his time (and OURS) considered physically impossible: he had constructed a GENUINE WORKING OB PM gravity wheel!
You're getting warmer, John.
ReplyDeleteI thought this:
ReplyDeletehttps://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&cid=14908161721798139926&q=Kaskadenwirtschaft+Grisch%C3%A4fer&iwloc=A&gl=US&hl=en
was the place.
I grabbed a screen shot of the satellite image. I need to find out where I can place it so you all can view it. I don't have any knowledge in this area. Does anyone have any suggestions?
ReplyDeleteYou don't need to put it online. Just copy and paste the browser address in your post like I did.
ReplyDeleteThanks, it took me a while to find the link option in Google.
DeleteA picture is worth a thousand words as they say ... I started at Kassel and had to search around until I found the lake and island. They are tiny and hard to see in the landscape. Let me locate the lake again and see if the link refers to the actual position I am at. I am a member of BW, I guess I could always post there. I can also email to anyone that wants a copy.
ReplyDeleteIf you do a Google map search on "Kassel, Germany" and look just to the south east (I'm assuming the maps are displayed in N-S orientation) you will see an oblong symmetrical shape of roads/paths and water ways. If you zoom in on the island (what I would consider the pendulum bob), you will see it is make up of 8 circles around a circle. Maybe the bob was actually an overbalanced weight wheel and CF, along with gravity, provided the force to rotation the wheel as the pendulum swung back and forth. Anyway this was an idea I have been investigating for some time and when I saw the shape in the map, I found it interesting.
ReplyDeleteTry this ...
ReplyDeletehttps://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=51.302501,9.497681&spn=0.020848,0.038581&t=m&z=15
Satellite version
ReplyDeletehttps://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=51.302501,9.497681&spn=0.020848,0.038581&t=h&z=15
I saw that when I was looking for Karl's old place with the cascade. Was that place there part of the Bessler story?
ReplyDeleteI found this.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.docstoc.com/docs/25317698/Gardens-and-parks-from-Kassel-Germany
It appears that the park design is based on the solar system. I still find the overall "pendulum like" shape of the walkways and pond very interesting. Of course Bessler mentioned the planets too ... who knows.
I've studied the satellite images of the site and I don't see anything in the layout that would pertain to Bessler's wheel. Yes, the monument was octagonal and Bessler's one directional wheel and subwheels did contain 8 weighted levers, but that could just have been coincidence.
ReplyDelete