36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



vanced state some ten centuries later. The practice of building great 

 pyramidal temples seems to liave passed eastward to India and Bur- 

 mah, where it appears in buildings of a later date, in Buddhist topes 

 and pagodas ; marvels of skill in masonry, and far surpassing the old 

 brick mounds of Chaldea in richness of design and in workmanship. 

 Egypt was probably far better irrigated in the days of the Pharaohs 

 than it is now ; and Lake Moeris, of which the remains have been ex- 

 plored by M. Linant, was a reservoir made by one of the Pharaohs, 

 and supj)lied by the flood-waters of the Nile. It was 150 square 

 miles in extent, and was retained by a bank or dam GO yards wide 

 and 10 high, which can be traced for a distance of 13 miles. This 

 reservoir was capable of irrigating 1,200 square miles of country. No 

 work of this class has been undertaken on so vast a scale since, even 

 in these days of great works. The springs of knowledge which had 

 flowed so long in Babylonia and Assyria were dried up at an early 

 period; but Egypt remained the fountain-head whence knowledge 

 flowed to Greece and Rome. The early constructive works of Greece, 

 till about the seventh century b. c, form a strong contrast to those of 

 its more prosperous days. Commonly called Pelasgian, they are more 

 remarkable as engineering works than admirable as those which 

 followed them were for architectural beauty. Walls of huge un- 

 shapely stones admirably fitted together, however tunnels, and 

 bridges characterize this period. In Greece, during the few and glo- 

 rious centuries which followed, the one aim in all construction was to 

 please the eye, to gratify the sense of beauty; and in no age was that 

 aim more thoroughly and satisfactorily attained. 



In these days, when sanitary questions attract each year more 

 attention, we may call to mind that twenty-three centuries ago the city 

 of Agrigentum possessed a system of sewers, which on account of 

 their large size was thoiight worthy of mention by Diodorus. This is 

 not, however, the first record of towns being drained. The well-known 

 Cloaca Maxima, which formed part of the drainage system of Rome, 

 was built some two centuries earlier, and great A'aiilted drains passed 

 beneath the palace-mounds of unburnt brick at Nimroud and Baby- 

 lon, and possibly we owe the preservation of many of the interesting 

 remains found in the brick-mounds of Chaldea to the very elaborate 

 system of pipe drainage discovered in them and described by Loftus. 

 While Pelasgian art was being superseded in Greece, the city of 

 Rome was founded, in the eighth century before our era; and Etrus- 

 can art in Italy, like the Pelasgian art in Greece, was slowly merged 

 in that of an Aryan race. 



It would be impossible for me to do justice to even a small part of 

 the engineering works which remain to this day as monuments of the 

 skill, the energy, and ability, of the great Roman people. War, with 

 all its attendant evils, has often indirectly benefited mankind. In the 

 sieges which took place during the wars of Greece and Rome, the in- 



