THE IRRIG 110N AGE. 59 



known ages before the Christian era, and was practiced in those hot, 

 arid countries upon a colossal scale. Plato in his writings speaks of 

 the early irrigation of Greece and Egypt. And from his writings it 

 can be readily seen that both of these ancient nations constructed un- 

 derground conduits for the purpose of bringing water from the bights 

 and allowing it to gush forth at suitable points, both for irrigation and 

 domestic uses; that they built immense dams, canals, reservoirs and 

 aqueducts for the same purpose. And, whether the story of Plato of 

 the lost Atlantis and its people is true or not, we are sure that long 

 prior to the time that Plato wrote, these stupendous feats had been 

 accomplished and were not then considered beyond the possibility of 

 human engineering and skill. 



I will briefly mention a few of the other early nations which were 

 acquainted with the results of the application of water by artificial 

 means for the purposes of irrigating lands. To Egypt, as has been 

 seen, is attributed the first knowledge and practice of the art of irri- 

 gation; and it is claimed by some authorities that the annual overflow 

 of the river Nile gave the first inspiration and taught the value of 

 irrigation to that people. If this is true, it is more than probable that 

 Egypt, in her turn, taught the art to the people of Assyria, Babylo- 

 nia, Carthage, to the Phoenicians and to the early inhabitants of Italy. 

 At any rate, at a later day than when we know the art was practiced 

 in Egypt, we find records of these nations having knowledge of and 

 practicing irrigation very extensively. A great many of the ancient 

 writers of these countries speak of the canals and aqueducts. Cato> 

 among the Romans, speaks of the formation and management of 

 watered gardens. The Lombard kings, at a still later date, undoubt- 

 edly followed the Roman practice and encouraged and extended the 

 art in Italy. From Lombardy the art extended to Prance; and the 

 Moors encouraged it in Spain, Sicity and Algeria. The early history 

 of Persia and China also shows that these nations were acquainted 

 with the art at a very early date. In India the art was also practiced 

 in very early days, and continues to be practiced to the present day; 

 and the mighty canals and aqueducts of that country are among the 

 wonders of the world. In fact, in all of those hot, dry and arid coun- 

 tries of the old world, irrigation has been practiced from almost the 

 earliest periods, and we find that today it is in operation, but in some 

 cases not so extensively as it was practiced by the ancient inhabitants 

 of the country. 



In fact, those who believe in the literal construction of the Bible 

 must believe that irrigation was a God-sent act to the inhabitants of 

 the Garden of Eden; for in the second chapter of Genesis and tenth 

 verse we find the following: "And a river went out of Eden to water 



