6 IRRIGATION FARMING. 



feet, and by numerous branches on both sides it irrigated 

 a very extensive area of country, while at the same time 

 it was also available for navigation. With the destruc- 

 tion of Babylon the glory of the Mesopotamia!! Empire 

 departed, the canals were neglected, and the country de- 

 scribed by Herodotus as being prolific before all other 

 lands in its production of corn, wheat and barley has 

 become so dry and barren that it cannot be cultivated, 

 and is inhabited only by nomadic bands of Bedouins 

 and the scurvy, wandering Arabians. 



In the book of Ecclesiastes we read of the hidden 

 springs and sealed fountains of Solomon, from which 

 the water was piped to the plains below. The remains 

 of reservoirs in the neighborhood of Hebron, which the 

 Jews are supposed to have constructed in the days of 

 Solomon for the supply of Jerusalem, show that their 

 designers were equally alive with most engineers of the 

 present age to the great importance of an ample and 

 constant supply of water. The Phoenicians, in the 

 zenith of their power, were celebrated for their canals, 

 both for the supply of Carthage with drinking water 

 and for purposes of irrigation. They were a very dili- 

 gent people, and so imbued were they in the cause of 

 irrigation that they made aqueducts through mountains 

 of solid granite, hewing the way with hand chisels. 

 Many of these prehistoric works still remain. 



The Greeks, judging from the ruins of large aque- 

 ducts scattered throughout the country, appear from a 

 very remote period to have paid the greatest attention to 

 hydraulic science. Herodotus describes an ancient con- 

 duit for supplying Samos, which had a channel three 

 feet wide and which pierced a hill with a tunnel nearly 

 a mile long. Another masonry aqueduct near Patara 

 crossed a ravine 200 feet wide and 250 feet deep. Vir- 

 gil, that nio-t charming of Roman poets, in referring 

 t<> irrigation in his First Georgic, 88 



