Huttaler Widerwaage

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Huttaler Widerwaage and mouth of the Huttal Water Tunnel HuttalerWW.JPG
Huttaler Widerwaage and mouth of the Huttal Water Tunnel
Plan of the Huttaler Widerwaage and the structures linked to it HuttalerWW.jpg
Plan of the Huttaler Widerwaage and the structures linked to it

The Huttaler Widerwaage is a small reservoir that is a part of the Upper Harz Water Regale, an old mining water management system in the Harz Mountains of Germany that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The reservoir lies east of the mining town of Clausthal-Zellerfeld. It is designed to feed water from the Huttal river during times of low water to the reservoir pond of the Hirschler Teich and, during times of high water, to handle the overflow of water from it.

Upper Harz Water Regale part of a World Heritage site in Germany

The Upper Harz Water Regale is a system of dams, reservoirs, ditches and other structures, much of which was built from the 16th to 19th centuries to divert and store the water that drove the water wheels of the mines in the Upper Harz region of Germany. The term regale, here, refers to the granting of royal privileges or rights in this case to permit the use of water for mining operations in the Harz mountains of Germany.

Clausthal-Zellerfeld Place in Lower Saxony, Germany

Clausthal-Zellerfeld is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located in the southwestern part of the Harz mountains. Its population is approximately 15,000. The City is the location of the Clausthal University of Technology. The health resort is located in the Upper Harz at an altitude between 390 and 821 m above sea level.

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Location

The Huttaler Widerwaage lies in the Upper Harz in the Harz Nature Park. It is located southeast of Clausthal-Zellerfeld around 550 metres east-southeast of the source of the Innerste and about 500 metres south of the B 242 at Huttaler Graben at about 605 m above  sea level (NHN) . [1]

Innerste Sidestream of the river Leine

The Innerste is a river in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is a right tributary of the Leine river and 101 km (63 mi) in length.

Bundesstraße 242 federal highway in Germany

The B 242 is a federal highway in Germany. It runs from Seesen to Mansfeld.

<i>Normalhöhennull</i> standard reference level, the equivalent of sea level, used in Germany to measure height

Normalhöhennull or NHN is a vertical datum used in Germany.

Function

A Widerwaage is the name used in the region of the Upper Harz Water Regale for a small basin or small impoundment. This particular basin is impounded by a small wooden weir structure, a so-called Fehlschlag. It is linked by the Huttal Water Tunnel (Huttaler Wasserlauf) with the Hirschler Teich on the other side of the ridge and is designed so that the two reservoirs act as a communicating vessels. Water from the Schwarzenberg and the Polsterberg Pumphouse is supplied to the Widerwaage by the Huttal Ditch (Huttaler Graben). If the weir is full, water is drained out of it through the Huttal Water Tunnel to the Hirschler Teich. There it was used to supply hydropower for the very productive Caroline and Dorothea Pits.

Communicating vessels set of containers containing a homogeneous fluid

Communicating vessels is a system of containers filled with a homogeneous fluid, connected at the base and subjected to the same atmospheric pressure. When the liquid settles, it balances out to the same level in all of the containers regardless of their shape and volume. If additional liquid is added to one vessel, a new equal level will be established in all the connected vessels. This process is part of Stevin's Law and occurs because gravity and pressure are constant in each vessel.

Polsterberg Pumphouse

The Polsterberg Pumphouse is a pumping station above the Dyke Ditch in the Upper Harz in central Germany which is used today as a forest restaurant.

Related Research Articles

Schalke (Harz) mountain in Germany

The Schalke is a mountain, 762 m above sea level (NN), in the Upper Harz in the German state of Lower Saxony. It lies in Goslar district north of Clausthal-Zellerfeld and west of Schulenberg.

Upper Harz Mining Museum

The Upper Harz Mining Museum is a museum of technological and cultural history in Clausthal-Zellerfeld in the Harz mountains of central Germany. It is one of the oldest technological museums in Germany and concentrates on the history and presentation of mining in the Upper Harz up to the 19th century.

Aschentalshalbe mountain in the Harz, Germany

The Aschentalshalbe is a ridge in the Harz Mountains of Germany that is up to 685 m above sea level (NN). It lies south of the village of Sieber in the unincorporated area of Harz in the district of Göttingen in the state of Lower Saxony.

Upper Harz Ditches

The Upper Harz Ditches are hillside ditches, running roughly parallel to the contour lines, that were laid out in the Upper Harz in Germany from the 16th to the 19th centuries to supply water power to the silver mines there. They are an important component of the Upper Harz Water Regale, a historical water system that is now a cultural monument.

Oderteich reservoir in Germany

The Oderteich is an historic reservoir about seven kilometres northeast of Sankt Andreasberg in the Upper Harz in central Germany. It was built by miners from St. Andreasberg in the years 1715 to 1722 and, today, is an important component of the water supply network known as the Upper Harz Water Regale. Moreover, for 170 years, from the time it was completed to the end of the 19th century, the Oderteich had the largest dam in Germany. The dam lies at a height of 725 m above NN by the B 242 federal highway, about a kilometre west of its intersection with the B 4.

Upper Harz Water Tunnels

The Upper Harz Water Tunnels are part of the Upper Harz Water Regale - a network of reservoirs, ditches, tunnels and other structures in the Harz mountains of central Germany. The German term Wasserlauf refers to the underground element of the network of watercourses used in the historic silver mining industry of the Upper Harz. This network of ditches and tunnels was used to supply the mines with headrace waters for their water wheels from the 16th century onwards. In the system of the Upper Harz Water Regale there are over 35 such tunnels with a total length of about 30 km.

Upper Harz Ponds

The Upper Harz Ponds are found mainly around the mining town of Clausthal-Zellerfeld and the nearby villages of Buntenbock and Hahnenklee in the Upper Harz mountains of central Germany. There are around 70 ponds in total, both large and small. They were built by the miners of the Upper Harz, mostly between the 16th and 18th centuries, and are important components of the cultural monument known as the Upper Harz Water Regale - a network of dams, ditches, ponds and tunnels that was built to supply much-needed water power for the mining industry in the Harz mountains. Today the Water Regale is being proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. About half the dammed ponds are classified today as reservoirs, but they have now become characteristic features of the Upper Harz and are home to some extremely rare plant and animal species.

Dyke Ditch

The Dyke Ditch is the longest artificial ditch in the Upper Harz in central Germany. Its purpose was to collect surface runoff for the operation of the Upper Harz mining industry from precipitation-heavy regions a long way away. It was laid in 1732 and continually extended eastwards until 1827. Its original length was about 25 km; this was successively shortened by water tunnels between 1820 and 1861 to around 19 km. It is a central component of the Upper Harz Water Regale. Its takes its name from the Sperberhai Dyke which is, in fact, an embankment on top of which the Dyke Ditch runs in an aqueduct in order to cross a depression.

Mining in the Upper Harz

Mining in the Upper Harz region of central Germany was a major industry for several centuries, especially for the production of silver, lead, copper, and, latterly, zinc as well. Great wealth was accumulated from the mining of silver from the 16th to the 19th centuries, as well as from important technical inventions. The centre of the mining industry was the group of seven Upper Harz mining towns of Clausthal, Zellerfeld, Sankt Andreasberg, Wildemann, Grund, Lautenthal und Altenau.

<i>Kunstteich</i>

A Kunstteich is an historic German term for a man-made lake or pond associated with the mining industry and its technology. These ponds were created by the construction of barriers, typically dams and embankments, and were used to supply hydropower and water to the mines. Water stored in the reservoir was used for a variety of purposes. It was used to turn water wheels that in turn drove the various mechanical devices used in mining in earlier centuries, such as man engines. It was also used to produce power and drain the mines, or in the processing of ore. In principle, all Kunstteiche are small dam and reservoir installations. The oldest working dams in Germany are Kunstteiche.

Lower Harz Pond and Ditch System

Within the Lower Harz region are still many traces of the historical water management facilities used by the mining industry. In addition to water-carrying ditches and ponds, there are also long-abandoned ditches and dry pond beds. The Lower Harz Pond and Ditch System, which forms the major part of these old water management facilities, lies in the central Lower Harz, almost entirely within the borough of the present-day town of Harzgerode.

Bärenbrucher Teich reservoir

The Bärenbrucher Teich is an historic reservoir in the Harz Mountains of central Germany. It lies east of Buntenbock near Clausthal-Zellerfeld.

Jägersbleeker Teich reservoir

The Jägersbleeker Teich in the Harz Mountains of central Germany is a storage pond near the town of Clausthal-Zellerfeld in the county of Goslar in Lower Saxony. It is one of the Upper Harz Ponds that were created for the mining industry.

Bergrat Müller Pond

The Bergrat Müller Pond, named after a former mining director, Müller, in the Harz mountains of central Germany is a storage pond laid out from 1737 to 1738. It has an area of about 1.3 ha and lies in the forested southern part of the borough of Quedlinburg in the county of Harz in Saxony-Anhalt.

Lower Grumbach Pond

The Lower Grumbach Pond, usually just Grumbach Pond, is an old mining reservoir or Kunstteich between Hahnenklee and Wildemann in the Upper Harz mountains in Germany

References

Coordinates: 51°47′08″N10°22′40″E / 51.78556°N 10.37778°E / 51.78556; 10.37778

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.