482 Artificial Irrigation. [ Oct., 
with the system of irrigation which existed there. On this branch 
of the subject we must therefore be content to know only, that 
while irrigation certainly was employed in the valley of the Po, 
from the remotest epoch of which we have any record, there is 
every reason to think that few, if any, works of magnitude were 
constructed, that the extent of the system was limited, and as 
compared with its more modern development, of very minor 
importance.” 
In India, the chief irrigated districts lie to the North-west, 
in the Punjab in the first place, and in the Peninsula im the 
second place. In their most important natural features the plains 
of Northern India and Northern Italy bear a striking resemblance 
to each other. Situated alike at the bases of the greatest mountain 
ranges on the continents to which they belong—drained alike by 
rivers which, flowing from regions of perpetual snow, have their 
volumes influenced by similar causes; possessed of slopes which, 
though differently distributed and arranged, are still equally well 
adapted to the necessities of each, belonging to the same geological 
epoch, and having physical structures with the same leading charac- 
teristics, it may be said of them that they are generically the same, 
whilst they differ somewhat in their physical aspects. Similarly, 
the eastern coast of Spain may, with equal propriety, be compared 
with the eastern side of the Indian Peninsula. Both in Eastern 
Spain and in the Carnatic the rivers rise in mountains below the 
level of perpetual snow, and are deficient in that permanence and 
recularity of supply which is the characteristic of more favoured 
irrigated regions. In both countries the rainfall is scanty and pre- 
carious, and the dry crops which are dependent upon it often fail. 
In both, the supplies of water for irrigation are secured by similar 
contrivances. 
The first Indian canal of which there exists any satisfactory 
record dates from the year 1351, and it is stated to have been con- 
structed by Feroze Toghlak. An interesting document discovered 
by Lieutenant S. A. Abbott, being a decree of the great Akbar, 
dated A.D. 1568, referring to the canal of Feroze Shah, which at 
that date had become so choked that its bed was scarcely discernible, 
directed that it should be excavated deeper and wider than formerly. 
Sixty or seventy years later new works were undertaken during the 
reien of Shah Jehan. The foundation of Shahjehanabad, and the 
natural desire to secure for his new capital and favourite residence 
the benefit of an abundant supply of water, induced the emperor 
to project the Delhi Canal. This canal, which was constructed in 
1626, continued efficient for a century and a quarter. Aged men 
informed a British officer on survey duty in the neighbourhood in 
1807, that they were finally deprived of the canal water about the 
year 1753, in the reign of Alumgir IT. The canal of Feroze had 
