INTRODUCTION. 



T is needless to inquire at what date and in what country 

 attention was first directed to the reclamation and protection 

 of land, as such an inquiry would not afford any satisfactory 

 or useful result. But it is well known that the subject has long 

 engaged the attention of engineers, and is viewed as of great 

 practical importance by agriculturists. It has occurred to me, 

 therefore, that an exposition of the state of our knowledge regard- 

 ing this branch of agricultural engineering, founded on personal 

 experience and study of the principal rivers and estuaries of 

 the United Kingdom, may prove not uninteresting to the mem- 



(rs of the Highland Society. 

 In offering this exposition of an extensive subject, it may 

 as well in the outset to explain, that I do not propose 

 to describe those gigantic land-making and land-improving 

 works carried out in early times in some foreign countries, 

 and to which the kingdom of Holland, for example, may 

 be said in a great measure, if not altogether to owe its 

 existence, and the fertile banks of the Po their productive- 



