In the early 2000s the city of Nantes, France, decided to
create an art installation and amusement park called "Les Machines de l’île"
on the site of a former shipyard. The amusement park tries to depict Jules
Verne’s "invented worlds", the mechanical universe of Leonardo da Vinci, and of
Nantes’ industrial history.
One of major attraction of this amusement park, completed in
2007, is a giant Mechanical Elephant inspired by Jules
Verne’s novel "The Steam House", in which British colonists travel through India
in a house on wheel pulled by a steam-powered elephant. It is believed that the
basic design may also have been inspired by the famous
Lucy the Elephant in Margate City, NJ, USA (built 1882) and
The Sultan's
Elephant (which no longer exists).
This giant elephant called Le Grand Éléphant is
12 metres (40 ft.) high, 8 metres (26 ft.) wide and 21 metres (70 ft.) long. Made
of steel and wood, it weighs 48.4 tonnes (53 tons). The body of the elephant has
an indoor lounge with French doors and balconies and a terrace accessible via
stairways. It is powered by a 450 HP motor and carries 49 passengers on its
back. It's movements are set in motion by gears and 62 cylinders; 46 hydraulic,
6 pneumatic and 10 gas-powered. While in motion it flaps its leather ears, moves its
trunk and occasionally sprays water through the
trunk on the unsuspecting observers. The movements of the elephant are controlled by
its Mahout sitting in a cabin between its forelegs.
Image from Flickr is by shaindlin
Image from Flickr is by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra
Image from Flickr is by Charles Parent
Image from Flickr is by Brian Burger
Original content of YouTube is from Flickr by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra
View in Google Maps and Street View / Google Earth
Main source of info and more info: bbc.com / lesmachines-nantes.fr (Official Webpage) / Wikipedia
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to write your comments but remember that the same are moderated. So please do not post SPAM comments i.e. your business links here including surrogate links.
Comments containing SPAM are liable for rejection.