I’d Love To Read About: Underground Places And Garbage

Today we’re starting a new series on the blog. I’m calling it “I’d Love To Read About . . .” I have no idea how many of these posts I’m going to write, but let’s roll with it and see what happens.

Have you ever learned a strange fact or seen an unusual place and thought, I wish there were more books about that? It happens to me all the time. Authors, if you’re listening, here are four strange things that I wish somebody would write about. (Or take inspiration from. I’m not picky!)

I’d love to read about . . .

Ancient Roman Human Hamster Wheels

The Ancient Romans needed metal to keep their civilization going, and the best way to get metal was to mine for it. The Ancient Romans were pretty good at mining, but they did run into a few problems in their mines. One of them was floods. When you dig a really deep hole, it tends to fill with water.

That’s why the Romans invented the reverse overshot waterwheel. This is a giant waterwheel that scoops water out of a lower part of a mine and dumps it into a higher part. A bunch of wheels working in tandem could move water all the way to the surface.

From Wikipedia

Here’s what’s interesting about the wheels: They were powered by humans. A person—usually a prisoner of war or a convicted criminal—had to walk on top of each wheel to keep it turning. This was not a pleasant job. The mines were dark, hot, wet, and often full of toxic gas. Mine workers didn’t live very long. Ancient Roman miner is probably one of the worst jobs that humans have dreamed up.  

Derinkuyu Underground City, Turkey

In 1963, a Turkish man was renovating his basement. He knocked a big hole in his wall and discovered . . . an abandoned underground city. It wasn’t a tiny city, either. Derinkuyu Underground City stretches 18 stories beneath the ground and could house 20,000 people and their livestock. The city had schools, churches, meeting places, stables, storage spaces, kitchens, everything that people and animals need to survive.

The city was probably built between 780 and 1180AD. It may have been used to protect the above-ground city’s inhabitants during the Arab-Byzantine wars.

A school room. From Wikipedia

Now I’m tempted to start knocking holes in my basement walls.

Glass Beach, USA

In 1906, the residents of Fort Bragg, California decided to dump their garbage in the ocean. A recent earthquake in the area meant that the citizens of Fort Bragg had a lot of broken stuff to dispose of. The ocean dump grew until 1967, when the government decided that it’s probably not a great idea to throw old cars and kitchen appliances into the water. By then, some odd things had happened to the ocean trash.

The pounding waves broke up all of the glass in the dump. The ocean rounded the sharp edges of the glass and scattered it across the beach. Nowadays, all that old glass looks like smooth, colorful pebbles. The red pebbles are from the taillights of early-1900s cars. The blue ones are from medicine bottles. Green, brown, and yellow glass came from beer or soda bottles. The former dump is now a tourist attraction. People love combing the beach for pretty pebbles.

From Wikipedia

A note from California State Parks: “All park cultural features are protected by law and may not be removed or disturbed, including glass found at Glass Beach.” You can go to the beach and admire the beautiful garbage, but you can’t take it home with you.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Let’s move on to some less-desirable garbage. Each year, an estimated 1-2 million tons of plastic washes into the ocean. Most of the plastic floats, so currents shove it to different points around the globe. The biggest conglomeration of ocean plastic is The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (greatest name ever), which is located between California and Hawaii. It covers a surface area of 1.6 million square miles (twice the size of Texas, or three times the size of France). It’s made up of an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic and weighs about 80,000 tons (equivalent to the weight of 500 jumbo jets).

 Click here to watch on YouTube.

That’s a lot of plastic, people. Recycle that stuff. It's not good for the fish.

Is there a topic that you wish more authors would write about? Do you know any books that somehow involve these subjects?