Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Sydney Ferris

Whisper on the street is that a temporary Ferris wheel may soon be erected near Sydney's Circular Quay. If the proposal gets the go-ahead from the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, the wheel could be (a)round from later this year to January next year. The (generic) Ferris wheel is named after American engineer George Washington Gale Ferris who "designed such a wheel for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893." The SlovoEd dictionary for Palm goes on to say that a Ferris wheel is "an amusement device consisting of a large power-driven wheel made in two parallel sections having seats suspended between the sections; the seats maintaining a horizontal position while the wheel rotates in a vertical plane".
The Sydney version is planned to be 45 metres tall, and have 36 six-seat air-conditioned gondolas.

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