HARBOR AND GOAST IMPROVEMENTS. A401 
produce these limited results are all in a considerable degree 
subject to control, or rather to direction and resistance, by hu- 
man power, and it is in guiding, combating, and compensating 
them that man has achieved some of his most remarkable and 
most honorable conquests over nature. The triumphs in ques- 
tion, or what we generally call harbor and coast improvements, 
whether we estimate their value by the money and labor ex- 
pended upon them, or by their bearing upon the interests of 
commerce and the arts of civilization, must take a very hich 
rank among the great works of man, and they are fast assuming 
a macnitude greatly exceeding their former relative importance. 
The extension of commerce and of the military marine, auc 
especially the introduction of vessels of increased burden and 
deeper draught of water, have imposed upon engineers tasks of 
a character which a century ago would have been pronounced, 
and, in fact, would have been, impracticable ; but necessity has 
stimulated an ingenuity which has contrived means of execut- 
ing them, and which gives promise of yet greater performance 
in time to come. 
Indeed, although man, detached from the solid earth, is al- 
most powerless to struggle against the sea, he is fast becoming 
invincible by it so long as his foot is planted on the shore, or 
even on the bottom of the rolling ocean; and though on some 
battle-fields between the waters and the land he is obliged 
slowly to yield his ground, yet he retreats still facing the foe, 
and will finally be able to say to the sea, “Thus far shalt 
thou come and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be 
stayed!” * 
* Tt is, nevertheless, remarkable that in the particular branch of coast en- 
gineering where great improvements are most urgently needed, comparatively 
little has been accomplished. I refer to the creation of artificial harbors, and 
of facilities for loading and discharging ships. The whole coast of Italy is, one 
may almost say, harborless and even, wharfless, and there are many thousands 
of miles of coast in rich commercial countries in Europe, where vessels can 
neither lie in safety for a single day, nor even, in better protected havens, ship 
or land their passengers or cargoes except by the help of lighters, and other 
not less clumsy contrivances. It is strange that such enormous inconyenien- 
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