Can you hear the sound of whirling blades slicing the air? This is a windmill, a well-known symbol of the Netherlands. The windmill is 18 meters tall and each of the blades measures 15 meters long. It was built in 1738, which makes it nearly 270 years old. This is the village of Kinderdijk in the Netherlands. The village is situated in beautiful landscape abundant in water resources. Although the actual settlement is about only 1 square kilometre, there are 19 windmills in total operating here. But why do the windmills keep turning? Let me explain it to you. First the wind moves these blades, which then moves the turbines, and ..the turbines pump the water out. But for what purpose? To drain trapped water from the lowland area. One windmill can pump water up to 1.5 meters high. Here is how it works. Windmills take the water from the channel you see on the right and pump it up to the higher drainage canal. This procedure is repeated many times until the water is transferred to the desired level. Eventually, the water is released into a tributary of the Rhine. Have you noticed that the land lies lower than the river level? If there were no windmills here the whole area would be flooded. A quarter of the Netherlands actually lies below sea level. The windmills have converted a marshland area into fertile farming land and prevents this country from being flooded At one time there were about 10000 windmills dotted throughout the country, however, following the introduction of ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzRo7MiaGSw&hl=en
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