THE HISTORY OF IRRIGATION. 7 



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 the purposes of irrigation. They were 

 a very diligent people, and so imbued were they in 

 the cause of irrigation that they made aqueduc5ts 

 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 

 aquedu(5ls scattered throughout the country, appear 

 from a very remote period to have paid the greatest 

 attention to hydraulic science. Herodotus describes 

 an ancient conduit for supplying Samos, which had a 

 channel three feet wide and which pierced a hill with 

 a tunnel nearly a mile long. Another masonry aque- 

 dudl near Patara crossed a ravine 200 feet wide and 

 250 feet deep. Virgil, that most charming of Roman 

 poets, in referring to irrigation in his First Georgic, 

 says: 



" What may I say of that industrious swain 

 Who, like a soldier following spear with sword, 

 The grain pursues just cast into its place. 

 And rushes on it the adjoining heap 

 Of soil that is illy rich, then leads the stream 



