AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY. 143 



the country. While the bulk of English agriculture still struggles to arrive at deep draining 

 and deep disintegration of the soil, at clean fields, liberal manuring, and the clearing away 

 of useless hedgerows and trees ; while it is still miles away from such elaborate applications 

 as that of liquid manure by underground pipes ; and while the use of steam in any form is 

 still very exceptional, — Mr. Mechi and his coadjutors are looking forward confidently to steam 

 drainage and steam cultivation. A machine, invented by Lord Dundonald, was exhibited for 

 the accomplishment of the former object ; and, though the trial was not carried to a sufficient 

 extent to enable a very confident opinion to be formed on its merits, its ingenuity and sim- 

 plicity of construction were readily acknowledged by some of the most practical men present. 

 To bring about steam cultivation, a very pretty little working model was shown. This model 

 went up a steep embankment, along a rough road, turned in different directions with great 

 ease, and dug away with its spades in soft garden mould. It appears to be rather complex 

 in its parts, and otherwise open to objection ; but, taken in connection with other recent 

 improvements, it must be admitted that Mr. Mechi has fair grounds for his conviction that 

 we are brought close to the application of steam-power to the cultivation of the soil. Toward 

 this result the mechanical treatment of the land, in the best-farmed districts of England, has 

 been long tending, and the Royal Agricultural Society has at length acknowledged the want 

 by inviting the attention of inventors to it in their prize-list. 



Draining of Lake Fucino, in Italy. 



One of the most gigantic operations, involving drainage, is now in progress at the Lake 

 Fucino, or Celano, in Southern Italy. This lake is about eighty miles east of Rome and one 

 hundred and ten north of Naples ; and, being surrounded by the highest Apennines, is, as it 

 were, the reservoir into which fall all the rain and melted snows which flow down from its 

 gigantic neighbors. From the effectual manner in which it is enclosed on all sides, there is 

 no natural outlet for its waters, and thus it happens that an immense space of land is sub- 

 merged ; a yet larger space is continually threatened by the possible rising of the body of 

 the lake ; much land and capital have been lost ; and the inevitable consequence would be, 

 that capital would be completely withdrawn, and what might be made a garden would become 

 a desert. Yet, notwithstanding these uncertainties and dangers, such is the fertility of the 

 soil, that a population always springs up in its immediate neighborhood, just as it does on 

 the ashes of Vesuvius. The object of the present undertaking is not merely to drain the 

 lake, but to form a channel of communication with the Liris, whereby all future accumula- 

 tions of water may be carried off. 



The attempt to drain this lake is not altogether a new one. Julius Caesar intended to have 

 it drained, and might have done so, had it not been for his death. Claudius was the next 

 emperor who undertook the work, and that, too, in good earnest; "not merely for profit," 

 says Suetonius, "but for glory." It is interesting to observe that the mode of completing 

 the enterprise was similar to that now adopted. Certain persons offered to drain it at their 

 own expense, provided the land redeemed was conceded to them. Partly by tunnelling, and 

 partly by cutting the mountain, he, with difficulty, completed a canal, after working eleven 

 years incessantly with thirty thousand men. Pliny, speaking of it, says — "Among the 

 great works of Claudius especially deserving of notice, though destroyed by the jealousy of 

 his successor, was the tunnelling of a mountain to carry off the Lake Fucinum ; * * and 

 all was done in the midst of inner darkness — facts beyond the conception of all, except of 

 such as have seen them, and incapable of being described by him in language." The praise 

 is not too great, when we consider the low state of science which marked that age, and the 

 want of powder. All the details of the outlet were not completed, however, by Claudius ; 

 and Nero, so far from finishing them, suffered it to fall into ruins. Adrian repaired it. 

 From that time, or from the fall of the Roman empire, up to the thirteenth century, this 

 grand public work experienced the same fate with all other public monuments in Italy. 

 Frederic the Second, in 1240, Alphonse the First of Arragon, and Prince Colonna, at the 

 beginning of the seventeenth contury, made several efforts either to drain the lake or to limit 

 its ravages ; all of which, from various reasons, failed. Under the reign of Charles th-3 



