"A ON THE RECLAMATION 



ness. A wide enough field of observation may be found 

 within our own country, where, in prosecuting the ordinary 

 pursuits of agriculture, thousands of acres of barren sands and 

 flooded marshes have been converted into valuable land, and 

 many rivers have been confined within reasonable bounds by 

 engineering works of greater or less magnitude. Neither do I 

 propose to discuss questions of hydraulics, which belong to 

 pure engineering, or to state details of construction that have 

 already been given in many interesting papers in the Society's 

 Transactions, describing individual reclamation improvements. 

 My object is rather to show, generally, in what way engineer- 

 ing is connected with agriculture in the important work of re- 

 claiming and protecting land what are the varied conditions 

 of exposure and locality which render such protection neces- 

 sary, and what description of work is best adapted to each 

 particular case, for the information not so much of engineers, 

 as of agriculturists, to whom this communication is specially 

 addressed. 



The general feature of all low-lying lands intersected by rivers, 

 of all marsh lands on the borders of tidal estuaries, and 

 of some extensive tracts of land along the sea-coast, is their 

 liability to injury, and their need of protection by artificial 

 works, and the elements with which the engineer has to con- 

 tend in effecting agricultural improvements in such situations 

 are, river-currents and floods, tidal-currents and sea-waves. The 

 subject, therefore, with which we have to deal embraces distinct 

 compartments, each of which has its own characteristic features 

 and treatment, and it may perhaps be most conveniently con- 

 sidered under the following general sections : 



