The daylight was fading when we arrived in Pisa for our final stop. By the time we walked from the bus to the Leaning Tower of Pisa it was dark. I really enjoyed seeing it with lights on it. It was beautiful. - Nancy
WHY does the Tower of Pisa lean?
The leaning of the Tower of Pisa comes into the story in 1173, when construction began. Thanks to the soft ground, it had begun to lean by the time its
builders got to the third story, in 1178. Shifting soil had destabilized
the tower’s foundations. Over the next 800 years, it became clear the 55-metre tower wasn’t
just leaning but was actually falling at a rate of one to two
millimeters per year.
Today, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is more than five meters off perpendicular. Its architect and engineer tried to correct this by making the
remaining stories shorter on the uphill side – but to no avail. It kept
leaning more and more. The lean, first noted when three of the tower’s eight stories had
been built, resulted from the foundation stones being laid on soft
ground consisting of clay, fine sand and shells. The next stories were built slightly taller on the short side of the
tower in an attempt to compensate for the lean. However, the weight of
the extra floors caused the edifice to sink further and lean more. From: http://www.towerofpisa.org/tower-of-pisa-historical-facts/
The daylight was fading when we arrived in Pisa for our final stop. By the time we walked from the bus to the Leaning Tower of Pisa it was dark. I really enjoyed seeing it with lights on it. It was beautiful. - Nancy
No comments:
Post a Comment