Italian Irrigation. 
19a 
general education. Those who are anxious to copy the Italian 
model must consider whether they can dispense with its safe- 
guards. 
XII I . — Springs. 
The springs {fontanili) of Northern Italy are powerful auxilia- 
ries to the canals, even if sometimes they borrow before bestowing 
the supplies which they profess to furnish. The whole plain 
between the Alps and the Po is underlaid by a water-bearing 
stratum. The springs which rise from this stratum have a con- 
siderable volume and a high temperature, consequent on the 
depth of their source, which gives them a special value lor 
marcite. 
A spring-head near Milan is thiis described. An excavation 
was formed 200 feet long 100 feet wide, and about 8 feet deep. 
Over the surface thus laid open 42 separate springs, each enclosed 
within its v.ooden case, were to be seen, the united discharge of 
which amounted to nearly 12 cubic feet per second, which at 
the ordinary locp,l value of water was worth nearly 4000^. 
The sinking of some of these wooden tubes had been very 
laborious and costly, but they were unusually large — 8 feet in 
diameter. 
The stream which issues forth runs half-a-mile before it tops 
the level of the fields ; it then supplies a flow of 10 cubic feet 
per second for the irrigation of about 30 acres of winter meadow. 
It is calculated that the springs of Lombardy furnish in all about 
2000 cubic feet per second, those of Piedmont 1000, and that 
their united value is 840, 000^. 
Besides these recognised supplies, the canals in their passage 
are often largely but secretly recruited from this source ; the 
Naviglio Taverna, in particular, which draws only 15 cubic feet 
from the IMartesana, affording a discharge of nearly 30. 
In ■prospecting such springs, although the use of the old 
divining-rod is not quite abandoned, the flight of gnats and signs 
of unusual verdure are more relied on. 
All springs are by law the private property of the persons on 
whose land they are found, but a curious instance is cited of a pro- 
perty watered by the spring v^hich rises oa an adjacent estate, 
the proprietor resting his right solely upon usage. 
To protect vested interests early Milanese statutes enacted 
that no new spring-head should be formed within 68 feet of the 
bank of a public river, or within 490 feet of an existing spring ; 
whilst within 325 feet of the banks of the Tartaro, it was for- 
bidden to use new springs for irrigation, even should they be 
exposed by natural movements of the water itself. 
Modern legislation has discontinued the prescription of specific 
VOL. XXIV. O 
