ADDRESS. Ixxxiii 



more valuable and necessary for an increasing population, very extensive 

 works were undertaken. Land was reclaimed from the sea, canals were cut, 

 and machines were designed for lifting water. To the practical knowledge 

 acquired by the Dutch, whose method of carrying out hydraulic works is 

 original and of native growth, much of the knowledge of the present day in 

 embanking, and draining, and canal-making is due. The North-Holland 

 Canal* was the largest navigable canal in existence until the Suez Canal was 

 completed ; and the Dutch have just now nearly finished making a sea-canal 

 from Amsterdam to the North Sea, which, though not equal to the Suez Canal 

 in length, will be as great in width and depth, and involves perhaps larger 

 and more important works of art. This country was for many years beholden 

 to the Dutch for help in carrying out hydraulic works. In the seventcentli 

 century much fen land in the eastern counties was drained by Dutch labour^ 

 directed by Dutch engineers, among whom Sir Cornelius Yermuyden, an old 

 campaigner of the Thirty Years' War and a colonel of horse under CromweU, 

 is the most noted, 



"While the Dutch were acquiring practical knowledge in dealing with 

 water, and we in Britain among others were benefiting by their experience, 

 the disastrous results which ensued from the inundations caused by the 

 Italian rivers of the Alps gave a new importance to the science of hydraulics. 

 Some of the greatest philosophers of the seventeenth century (among them 

 Torricelli, a pupil of Galileo f) were called upon to advise and to superintend 

 engineering works; nor did they confine themselves to the construction of 

 preventive works, but thoroughly investigated the conditions pertaining to fluida 

 at rest or in motion, and gave to the world a valuable series of works on 

 hydraulics and hydraulic engineering, which form the basis of our knowledge 

 of these subjects at the present day. 



Some of the best scientific works (prior to the nineteenth century) on 

 engineering subjects we owe to Italian and French writers. The writings 

 of Belidor, an officer of artillery in France in the seventeenth century, who 

 did not, however, confine himself to military subjects, drew attention to 

 engineering questions. Not long after their appearance, the Pouts et Chaus- 

 sees J were established, which has maintained ever since a body of able men 

 specially educated for and devoted to the prosecution of industrial works. 



The impulse given to road-making in the early part of the last century 

 soon extended to canals and means for facilitating locomotion and transport 

 generally. Tramways were used in connexion with mines at least as early 

 as the middle of the seventeenth century ; but the raUs were, in those days, 

 of wood. The first iron raUs are said to have been laid in this country as 



» North-Holland Canal, finished in 1825. 

 t Galileo, b. 1564 ; Torricelli, b. 1608. 

 f Ponts et Chauss^es, established 1720. 



/2 



