I didn't explain it as well as I could have.
My property is on a hill. The water originates well up the hill. If I run a pipe that drops just one foot for every fifty lateral feet, the water will flow through it just fine and I will EFFECTIVELY gain altitude. That is, the ground descends more rapidly than that. When I've piped it a few hundred feet (affixing the pipe to either trees or to the adjacent hill) I can turn the pipe straight down and channel it with considerable force into my turbine.
It's hard to explain. You'd have to see it. The water originates at a spring in a ravine where two hills meet. I can dam up the ravine and build a pretty good sized reservoir with which to power things during the few dry months. The rest of the year, captured runoff from rainstorms and the spring should give me lots of water.
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