water, waiting for the flume to overflow. Suddenly there was a
gurgling noise. The heavy log swung first to the right, then to
the left, twisting like a snake, its head high as it floated away
quickly. A few seconds later the log slipped through the first
curve and was gone.Schauberger's flumes followed the curves of the valley, with guide
vanes mounted on the curves, making the water spiral along its
axis. With the careful monitoring of temperature along the route,
bringing in cold water where necessary, he found it was possible to
float logs under conditions regarded as impossible, using signifi-
cantly less water, and achieving very high delivery rates. Parts of his
flumes can still be seen in Austria today.
The flume at Steyrling was a great success, much to the chagrin
of the observing hydraulic engineers who were so sure his crazy
scheme would fail. Schauberger's fame quickly spread. Experts
came from all over Europe to study the flume's construction. He was
appointed State Consultant for Timber Flotation at a high salary.
The academics were furious that he could give directives on techni-
cal questions which he could not understand with his inadequate
education, and that he was paid twice as much as any of them. In
the crisis that followed, Viktor resigned, and accepted a job with one
of Austria's largest building contractors for whom he built installa-
tions all over Europe. If this has been his only accomplishment, Vik-
tor Schauberger would still be known as the man who completely
mastered the art of transporting timber by water.Water, source of life
His painstaking and inspired studies of water were the source for a
seminal paper that Schauberger wrote on 'Temperature and the
Movement of Water.'^2 Central to these was the influence of minute
differences in temperature, which are presently wholly ignored by
modern hydraulics and hydrology. Natural, living, water, which is
conventionally regarded as a homogenous substance, he showed to
be composed of many strata or layers with subtle variations in tem-
perature and electric charge which influence the water's motion, its
form of flow and its physical properties.
Schauberger saw water as a pulsating, living substance that ener-
gizes all of life, both organic and inorganic. He called it 'the life blood
- VIKTOR SCHAUBERGER'S VISION