making water work

To make water work for us we have to

	Contain
	Control it
	Collect

In the days before electricity or gas or oil people had to use water to drive machines.
Before they could make it work for them they had to control it.

	A weir was built to slow down the water. Then they could collect it.
	A sluice ( a kind of gate) was built  to let the water to flow out of the stream. It let them control how much.
	The water then ran in a channel This was called a goit. It could be quite short or run for a long way. Sometimes it went through a tunnel.
	The water then ran into a pond. This is called a dam. The water is contained here until it is needed. Some dams were quite big, others were very small.

From the dam the water went down another channel to the pentrough to the water wheel.