Chuck wrote:

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:32:25 -0500, Eddie Munster
wrote:

No the point is the soil conditions.

Now think about it for a minute...."Smoking Frog" comes up with this
great idea, a round thing that will make loads easier to move because
it will roll along the ground and the load will be borne on top of it.
But he thinks about it for a few minutes and says, "No, that'll never
work efficiently until the Mixtec Memorial Parkway is built. I guess
I'm just a few hundred years before my time."

Do you think Mesoamerica is a swamp? There's lots of solid ground.
Jungle doesn't preclude wheeled transport either. However, not making
the connection (mentally) between the wheel in abstract (like the
calendar) and a more practical application does preclude using it
for that application.

Much of Aztecia _is_ a swamp--they liked to build on islands in lakes.

And much of the rest of the area has moist soil conditions for a significant
portion of the year (can you say "rain forest"?). Further, anybody who has
maintained trails will tell you that wheeled vehicles, even relatively
gentle ones like mountain bikes, can start erosion patterns that if not
dealt with can make a significant mess of trails in such benign localities
as New England. The traffic of a large city moving loads over those same
trails on wooden-wheeled wheelbarrows would create a quagmire fairly
quickly.

I really doubt that if someone came up with an idea to ease their
burdens that would have been as revolutionary as the wheel, they would
have abandoned the idea because they lived next to a mudhole.

Doubt whatever you want to. It only eases their burdens if they can
actually use it. If they have to do ten times as much work preparing
surfaces for it to run on than they save by using it then it is not a good
deal.

--
Chuck *#:^)
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September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

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