A Practical Treatise on Draining Bogs and Swampy Grounds; Illustrated by Figures with Cursory Remarks Upon the Originality of Mr. Elkington's Mode of Draining to Which Are Added Directions for Making a New Kind of Strong, Cheap and Durable Fence, for Ri (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ANTIENT EXAMPLES OF IRRIGATION. Let us, however, in the firft place recur back to the ancients, and explore the regions of early-improved countries; of Greece, of Rome, of Egypt, and of China. In Beotia it is faid that immenfe works antiquity, not now to be traced, have been conflrucled to drain off, or to prevent the overflowing of the waters of Lake Copais (according to the Abbe Barthelemi); and that thefe are diftributed in various canals over the whole breadth of the mountain. There feems to be little doubt that thefe aftonifhing works were for the purpofe of- agricultural irrigation; for if they had been contrived, as. the Abbe conceives, to prevent the overflowing of the Lake, pray why did not that Lake drown the country before thefe canals were made ? How would it have been poflible to get at premifes fo drowned in the mountain to improve them ? Or is there any other probable purpofe forwhich they could have been conftructed, but the interefting purfuit to which I have attributed their defign ? See Phillips's Navigation, p. 2, cited from Anar- charfis. Magnificent aqueducts are faid to have been conftructed at Rome at a vaft expence, for fupplying that populous city with water. Thefe are reputed to have been varioufly formed, both in refpecl: to conftruction and material; fome paffing under ground, fome above ground, fome extending a hundred miles, aud built of ftone, brick, and wood, as occafIon ferved. Nine of thefe aqueducts are recorded to have diftributed their contents through thirteen thoufand five hundred and ninety-four pipes, of one inch diameter, perhaps to culinary ufes in part, but greatly to irrigating of gardens and other grounds, as the remains of balms and fountains feem to indicate: nor is it probable, in fo high a State of fplendor as Rom...