Poplar Grove
AND ITS
TIDE MILL By Bob Cerullo
T
he famed genius, Albert Einstein, once commented, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” In this age of incredible invention, it is easy to pay little attention to those inventions that changed the world. Yet, they are the basic building blocks for the modern marvels we enjoy today. Consider the water wheel. There were water wheels in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Europe during different time periods. It is not known who the genius was that first invented 66
the water wheel. There is some evidence the water wheel may have been used as early as 3500 BC. The water wheel grew to become one of mankind’s most important inventions. Then came the tide mill. A tide mill is a water mill driven by tidal rise and fall. Historians believe it was in Ireland that an Irish monk developed the tide mill. It was located on an island that did not have any freshwater streams, so the resourceful Irish monks turned to the latent power of the twice-daily rise and fall of the tides, which washed the shore at the bottom of the monastery. February/March 2020
