423 DEAINIlSrG OF SWAMPS. 



Drawimg of Swamrps. 



Tlie reclamation of bogs and swamps by draining off tlie sur- 

 face water is doubtless much more ancient than the draining of 

 lakes. The beneficial results of the former mode of improvement 

 are more unequivocal, and balanced by fewer disadvantages, and, 

 at the same time, the processes by which it is effected are much 

 simpler and more obvious. It has accordingly been practiced 

 through the whole historical period, and in recent times opera- 

 tions for this purpose have assumed a magnitude, and been at- 

 tended with economical as well as sanitary and geographical 

 effects, which entitle them to a high place in the efforts of man 

 to amehorate the natural conditions of the soil he occupies. 



The methods by which the draining of marshes is ordinarily 

 accomplished are too famihar, and examples of then* successful 

 employment too frequent, to require description, and I shall con- 

 tent myself, for the moment, with a brief notice of some recent 

 operations of this sort which are less generally known than their 

 importance merits. 



Witliin the present century more than half a million acres of 

 swamp-land have been drained and brought under cultivation in 

 Hungary, and works are in progress which will ultimately recover 

 a still larger area for human use. The most remarkable feature 

 of these operations, and at the same time the process which has 

 been most immediately successful and remunerative, is what is 

 called in Europe the regulation of watercourses, and especially 

 of the river Theiss, on the lower com'se of which stream alone 

 not less than 250,000 acres of pestilential and wholly unproduc- 

 tive marsh have been converted into a healthful region of the 

 most exuberant fertility. 



The regulation of a river consists in straightening its channel 

 by cutting off bends, securing its banks from erosion by floods, 

 and, where necessary, constructing embankments to confine the 

 waters and prevent them from overflowing and stagnating upon 

 the low grounds which skirt their current. In the course of the 

 Theiss about sixty bends, including some of considerable length, 

 have been cut off, and dikes sufficient for securing the land along 

 its banks against inundation have been constructed. 



Many thousand acres of land have been recently permanently 



