Watermill

The whirling wheel is awash with a crashing noise, a wild waterfall of sound that echos the importance of this ancient machine's aquatic mastery. This icon of olden times is a tranquil country vision that makes quite a calamitous cascade of sound when seen up close. The earliest evidence of a water-driven wheel appears in the technical treatises of the Greek engineer Philo of Byzantium (ca. 280−220 BCE). The 2nd century multiple mill complex of Barbegal in southern France has been described as "the greatest known concentration of mechanical power in the ancient world". It powered 16 flour mills with an estimated capacity of 4.5 tons of flour per day, sufficient to supply enough bread for the 12,500 inhabitants. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=94883