INTRODUCTION. XXV 



to each department, a pupil of the School of Bridges 

 and Highways, who, a stranger to any particular local in- 

 terest, should lay out district roads, determine their width, 

 compel each proprietor to confine his boundaries within 

 their original limits, prepare plans and schemes, and 

 prescribe the suitable materials to be employed in the 

 execution of them. The labors of this engineer should 

 be subject to the inspection of the engineer of the arron- 

 dissementj and to the approbation of the chief engineer ; 

 upon the report of this last, the prefect should order the 

 proposed plans to be carried into execution. The com- 

 munes should then provide for defraying the necessary 

 expenses, in such a manner as might be least burden- 

 some, and present the result of their deliberations to the 

 prefect for his approval. 



Canals and highways are for society at large what 

 by-roads are for the separate portions of it. These 

 grand means of communication may be called the arte- 

 ries of the social body, conveying life through all its 

 parts. One of our most profound writers has said, that 

 " rivers and navigable streams are roads which travel ; " 

 but canals present great advantages over navigable riv- 

 ers ; they go to seek the productions of a country in the 

 places of their origin ; their direction is always governed 

 by the necessity of such means of intercourse ; their 

 navigation is easy, regular, and safe ; they animate and 

 give life to all the country through which they pass, with- 

 out ever counterbalancing these advantages by the rav- 

 ages of an inundation. 



By diminishing the expense of transportation, hy, 

 opening communications with the distant portions of a 

 country, by facilitating the exchange of articles, and 



