418 CONSEQUENCES OF DKAESriNG LAKES. 



importance, but it has a still higlier moral value as an almost 

 tmique example of the exercise of public spirit, courage and per- 

 severance in the accomplishment of a noble and beneficent enter- 

 prise bj a private citizen.* 



The crater-lake of Nemi, in the same volcanic region as that 

 of Albano is also drained by a subterranean tunnel probably of 

 very ancient construction, and the Yalle-Kiccia appears to have 

 once been the basin of a lake long since laid dry, but whether 

 by the bursting of its banks or by human art we are unable 

 to say. 



The success of the Lake Celano tunnel has suggested other like 

 improvements in Italy. A gallery has been cut, under circum- 

 stances of great difficulty, to drain Lake Agnano near Il^aples, 

 and a project for the execution of a similar operation on the Lake 

 of Perugia, the ancient Trasimenus, which covers more than 

 40,000 acres, is under discussion. 



Many similar enterprises have been conceived and executed in 

 modern times, both for the purpose of reclaiming land covered 

 by water and for sanitary reasons.f They are sometimes attended 



* The draining of Lake Celano was undertaken by an incorporated company, 

 but Prince Alessandro Torionia of Rome bought up the interest of all the 

 shareholders and has executed the entire work at his own private expense. 

 Montricher, the celebrated constructor of the great aqueduct of Marseilles, 

 was the engineer who designed and partly carried out the plans, and since his 

 lamented death the work has been directed with equal ability by Bermont 

 and Brisse. — See Leon de Rotrou, Prosdugamento del Lago Fucino, 8vo. 

 Firenze, 1871. See also. The Braining of Lake Fucino, Rome, 1876, pub- 

 lished and liberally distributed by the munificence of Prince Torionia. I am 

 sorry to be obliged to add that a hundred copies of this valuable work, destined 

 by the Prince for the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, were detained by the 

 faithlessness of the agent entrusted with their transmission to the United States 

 and failed to arrive there in time. 



\ A considerable work of this character is mentioned by Captain GUliss as 

 having been executed in Chili, a country to which we should hardly have 

 looked for an improvement of such a nature. The Lake Taguataga was par- 

 tially drained by cutting through a narrow ridge of land, not at the natural 

 outlet, but upon one side of the lake, and eight thousand acres of land cov- 

 ered by it were gained for cultivation. — XT. S. Naval Astronomical Expedition 

 to the Southern Hemisphere, i., pp. 16, 17. 



Lake Balaton and the Neusiedler See in Himgary have lately been, at least 

 partially, drained. 



The lakes of Neuchatel, Bienne and Morat, in Switzerland, have been con 



