Ruina montium

Ruina montium (Latin, "wrecking of mountains") was an ancient Roman mining technique that draws on the principle of Pascal's barrel.^[1] Miners would excavate narrow cavities down into a mountain, whereby filling the cavities with water would cause pressures large enough to fragment thick rock walls.^[2] It was described by Pliny the Elder (Natural History 33.21), who served as procurator in Spain.

References

^ Ancient Engineers' Inventions: Precursors of the Present (Springer, 2009), p. 135.
^ Rossi, Cesare; Russo, Flavio; Russo, Russo (2009). Ancient Engineers' Inventions. Vol. 8. Springer. pp. 133–141. ISBN 978-90-481-2252-3.

This Ancient Rome–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This fluid dynamics–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[1] Ancient Engineers' Inventions: Precursors of the Present (Springer, 2009), p. 135.

[Rossi-2] Rossi, Cesare; Russo, Flavio; Russo, Russo (2009). Ancient Engineers' Inventions. Vol. 8. Springer. pp. 133–141. ISBN 978-90-481-2252-3.

[1]

[2]