PAKT I 

 IRRIGATION CULTUEE 



CHAPTER I 



THE EXTENT AND GEOGRAPHIC RANGE OF 

 IRRIGATION 



WHILE there is no reason to suppose that the rais- 

 ing of crops by irrigation on an extended scale is as 

 old as agriculture itself, the methods have, nevertheless, 

 been so long practiced as to far antedate authentic his- 

 tory. We are told that "the numerous remains of 

 huge tanks, dams, canals, aqueducts, pipes and pumps 

 in Egypt, Assyria, Mesopotamia, India, Ceylon, Phoe- 

 nicia, and Italy, prove that the ancients had a far- 

 mere perfect knowledge of hydraulic science than most 

 people are inclined to credit them with." 



In a paper read before the Royal Society of New 

 South Wales in 1887, Mr. Frederick S. Gipps states 

 that the first artificial lake or reservoir of which we 

 have authentic record was Lake Maeris, constructed, 

 some historians affirm, by King Maeris, and others by 

 King Amenemhet III, in the twelfth dynasty, 2084 

 B.C. Its object, it is thought, was the regulation of 



(66) 



