54 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is so short that it does not become warm enough to be used with advan- 

 tage. The same objection is alleged against snow-water. The glacier- 

 water, however, which is exposed to the sun for hours while running 

 down the flumes, reaches the fields at an agreeable temperature, and 

 ready for immediate application. This water is here free from oxide 

 of iron, and is entirely fertilizing ; but additional richness is some- 

 times given to it by carrying it around through the barn-yards, and 

 making it the means for transporting manure directly to the fields. 



The chief canals which bring the water down from the mountains 

 vary in length from one thousand to fifty-five thousand metres ; or, 

 measured by the time it takes the water to run through them, from a 

 quarter of an hour to six hours. The total length of the canals in the 

 canton is one million five hundred thousand metres, or two hundred 

 and fifty hours. The skill with which they have been located and 

 constructed excites an admiration that is increased when it is remem- 

 bered that they date from a remote antiquity and are the work of a 

 simple country-people. Beginning often in the immediate neighbor- 

 hood of the glaciers, crossing treacherous hills and lofty precipices, 

 and spanning deep abysses, passing through tunnels and cuts, led 

 along artificial terraces, that sometimes require additional embank- 

 ments or Avails to support them, these canals are really formidable 

 works. They furnish the life-blood of civilization to the canton, and 

 stand for a capital of incalculable value. They have been built and 

 are kept up by the villages ; and a badly kept one is an exception. 

 In most of the valley-slopes they lie in groups of three or four, the 

 uppermost one being the longest, and reaching far up toward the 

 glacier-source, and have an average descent of about 0*5 per cent. 

 The subordinate ditches are of a simpler character, till finally a mere 

 mark on the ground is all that directs the water to the particular spot 

 where it is wanted. 



The application of the water begins at about the first of April in 

 the valleys, and later as the height of the locality increases, till, on 

 the highest cultivated grounds, it is delayed till the middle of June, 

 and is continued for from two and a half to three months. The right 

 to draw off the water is apportioned out by village officers into turns, 

 of which there are from four to twelve in the season, of from eight to 

 twenty-one days or more each, according to the number of land-owners 

 claiming to share in it. 



Among the most remarkable of the main aqueducts are those of 

 the Gradetsch Valley, where the water is led down by eleven canals, 

 the highest of which starts from an altitude of 2,300 metres, or 

 nearly 7,500 feet above the sea. Some of the canals require wooden 

 conduits three or four thousand metres long, that have at times to be 

 supported by poles for six hundred metres at a stretch. To reach 

 them for repairs the workmen have in some places to be let down the 

 perpendicular rock-walls with ropes. 



