Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1860. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF EMBANKING LANDS FROM RIVER-FLOODS. CHAPTER I. SKETCH OP THE HISTORY OF EMBANKING. "Leveeing "--Embanking as it is generally called--to confine rivers within their banks, and bar the approach of the sea, and its sister system of back-drainage, have, from a very early period, occupied the attention of individuals, governments and peoples. The Phoenecians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Romans, Hindoostanees, and other East Indian nations, embanked low lands and drained marshes. Those nations chiefly inhabited alluvial plains, which, by their superior richness of soil when reclaimed, amply repaid them in the abundance of their crops, at less labor than was necessary to expend in the cultivation of higher districts. History informs us that the Babylonians and Egyptians were the first to adopt the system of reclaiming waste lands by embankments. The low ground in the midst of which the city of Babylon was built, affords an early instance of the necessity of embanking; and consequently taught its inhabitants the principles of construction in earth works. The causeway thrown up over the low grounds, on each side of the Euphrates, leading to the celebrated bridge over that river, is the most remarkable, because it is the most ancient, of which there is any recotd. Egypt, the land of floods and marshes, from the richness of' its soil when reclaimed, was enabled at known periods of history to supply during times of dearth the impoverished nations around with corn. Egypt, when subject to Rome, was the granary from whence supplies for that city were drawn. About 2320 years before the Christian era, the greater part of Egypt was an extensive marsh, which Menes, the then-reigning King, undertook to reclaim. He diverted the course of the Nile into the middl...
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