Rolling South (Arturo Sandus Book 4) by Peter Rhodan

Author:Peter Rhodan [Rhodan, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-17T20:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Keeping the home fires burning

Morghanna watched as Arturo symbolically turned the first sod at the site of the new University of Camulodunum. The second university in the Republic had originally been intended for Londinium but after the religious revolt there they had decided to move it Camulodunum. South of the city on the coast there was a new port being built with a large ship basin and tidal gates like those at Wern and Neuvoportus and the railroad to the site had already been built and was being used to carry construction material and crews.

The northern tribal girl in Morghanna still found it hard to adjust to the sheer industry of the Republic under her husband. The skyline of Camulodunum used to be dominated by the Temple of Claudius but the new commercial buildings nearby that ringed the old forum were rapidly overshadowing that edifice.

And the new Bank of Londinium building was going to be four stories high in stone and brick. Amazing!

Still even more new ideas continued to flow from Arturo, or at least old ideas from his past being re-used. She still had trouble accepting his strange origins, but the constant stream of innovations served as a good reason to believe. Just last month he and the iron master at the new steelworks near Manucium had developed a horse drawn reaping machine that would do twice the work in half the time of two men with scythes. Then there were the steam road engines. This was a new development that was not quite perfected so far although she had seen the contraption they were working on and could not decide if she was scared or impressed.

Basically, it comprised a relatively thin but long boiler like those used on the railroad engines but mounted on a metal chassis with four large wheels and designed to lumber along the roads at little more than walking pace. She had not seen the point until Arturo had explained that the main use would be to provide a steam engine’s power at remote locations, the things having an auxiliary wheel to which a belt could be attached and could thus be used to power things. Plus, they could be used to haul heavy items that would normally require teams of bullocks or horses. And then he showed her the plans for an armoured box like addition that would allow the thing to simply roll through enemy troops, even those armed with muskets.

That development was still some distance off but even she could see the advantages such a machine would bring to the army who had them. But for all of that it was the little things that astounded her the most. Ceri had told her at a dinner the previous month that his ironworks had sold over ten thousand forks the previous year. Ten thousand! Spreading from the top of society down, the use of forks had now started expanding out to the rest of the Empire and even into the nearby barbarian lands.

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