IxXXU UEPORT 1875. 



The great use that has since been made of this simple means of transferring 

 floating vessels from one water-level to another, in connexion not only with 

 inland navigation, but in all the great ports and harbours of the world, renders 

 it aU the more deserving of remark. 



In India, under the Moguls, irrigation works, for which they had a natural 

 aptitude, were carried on during these centuries with vigour, and more than 

 one emperor is noted for the numerous great works of this nature which he 

 carried out. If the native records can be trusted, the number of hydraulic 

 works undertaken by some rulers is surprising. Tradition relates that one 

 king who reigned in Orissa in the twelfth century made one million tanks or 

 reservoirs, besides building sixty temples and erecting numerous other 

 works*. 



In India, the frequent overflow of the great rivers, and the periodical 

 droughts, which rendered irrigation necessary, led to extensive protective 

 works being undertaken at an early period ; but as these works have been 

 maintained by successive rulers, Mogul and Mohammedan, until recent times, 

 and have not been left for our inspection, deserted and useless for 3,000 years 

 or more, as is often the case in Egypt and Mesopotamia, there is more diffi- 

 culty in ascertaining the date of such works in India. 



Works of irrigation were among the earliest attempts at engineering under- 

 taken by the least civilized inhabitants in all parts of the world. Even in 

 Australia, where savages are found as low as any in the scale of civilization, 

 traces of irrigation works have been found ; these works, however, must be 

 taken to show that the natives were once somewhat more civilized than we 

 now find them. In Feejee, our new possession, the natives occasionally irrii 

 gate their land t, and have executed a work of a higher class, a canal some 

 two miles long and sixty feet wide, to shorten the distance passed over by 

 their canoes J. The natives of New Caledonia irrigate their fields with great 

 skill §. In Peru, the Incas excelled in irrigation as in other great and useful 

 works, and constructed most admirable underground conduits of masonry for 

 the purpose of increasing the fertility of the land ||. 



It is frequently easier to lead water where it is wanted than to check its 

 irruption into places where its presence is an evil, often a disaster. For 

 centuries the existence of a krge part of Holland has been dependent on the 

 skill of man. How soon he began in that country to contest with the sea 

 the possession of the land we do not know; but early in the twelfth century 

 dykes were constructed to keep back the ocean. As the prosperity of the 

 country increased with the great extension of its commerce, and land became 



* King Bhim Deo, a.d. 1174, 60 temples, 10 bridges, 40 wells stone-cased, 152 landing- 

 stairs, and one million tanks (Hunter's ' Orissa,' toI. i. p. 100). 

 t Erskine's 'Western Pacific,' p. 171. 



J Seeman, p. 82. § Ersldue's 'Western Pacific,' p. 355. 



]| Markham's 'Cieza' (note), p. 236. 



