DRAINAGE. 59 



margin of two elements, of which their agricultural poet 

 says, 



" Hue summis liquuntur rupibus amnes 

 Felicemque trahunt limum." 



Any person disposed to acquire, at a small expense of 

 time and trouble, a general knowledge of the war which 

 men of old carried on with the marsh and the fen, may 

 consult the first two-and- thirty columns of the great work 

 entitled, "The History of Embanking and Drayning of 

 divers Fens and Marshes, both in Foreign Parts and in 

 this Kingdom ; extracted from Records, Manuscripts, and 

 other authentic Testimonies by William Dugdale, Esq., 

 Norroy King of Arms." This indefatigable man, though 

 a very voluminous writer, scorns any superfluous exordium, 

 and commences his book and the history of antediluvian 

 draining by the following sentence : " That works of 

 draining are most ancient and of divine institution we 

 have the testimony of Holy Scripture." After a passing 

 notice of the draining of the earth on the subsidence of 

 the Deluge, he proceeds to say, " That those nations 

 which be of greatest antiquity, and of chief renown for 

 arts and civility, are also famous for their works of this 

 nature, is evident from the practice of the Egyptians, the 

 Babylonians, the Graecians, the Romans, and several others 

 of which I shall give instance." In pursuance of this 

 purpose our author furnishes us with a detail of various 

 works of draining, embankments, and outfalls commenced 

 in Egypt shortly after the Flood, and carried on to the 

 Christian era. Among the illustrious promoters of the 

 art he names Mysis, Sesostris, Sabacon, Psammeticus, 

 Necos, Psamrais, Bocchoris, Darius, Amasis, Alexander, 

 the Ptolemies, Cleopatra, and Augustus Ca3sar. He takes 

 a somewhat discursive view of a navigable channel from 

 the Nile to the Red Sea, which was commenced by Sesos- 

 tris before the Trojan war, and, after several futile 

 attempts by succeeding princes, w r as completed by a 

 Ptolemy. The various routes by which the traffic of 



