AQUEDUCTS. 
163 
tlie government of this part of the country, 150 kanauts, or aqueducts, 
have been made in different parts of the plain, each of which cost three 
thousand tomauns. Although this is evident exaggeration, yet the 
increase of agriculture so much depends upon the increase of artificial 
irrigation, that the one may be almost measured by the other. 
This subject acquires considerable importance from the manner in 
which it is noticed by Polybius. His remarks coincide so closely with 
the present mode of obtaining water by the means of kanauts, that no 
doubt can remain that it is an art which has maintained itself in the 
country from the times of ancient Persia. The extreme dryness of the 
climate, and the great deficiency of rivers, have obliged the natives to 
turn all their ingenuity to the discovery of springs*, and to the bring¬ 
ing of their streams to the surface of the earth, j* To effect this, when a 
spring has been discovered, they dig a well until they meet with the 
water; and if they find that its quantity is sufficient to repay them for 
proceeding with the work, they dig a second well, so distant from the 
other as to allow a subterranean communication between both. They 
then ascertain the nearest line of communication with the level of the 
plain upon which the water is to be brought into use, and dig a succes¬ 
sion of wells, with subterranean communications between the whole 
suite of them, until the water at length comes to the surface, when it 
is conducted by banked-up channels into the fields, or wherever may be 
its destination. The extent of country through which such streams are 
sometimes conducted is quite extraordinary. Mouths of wells are to be 
frequently met with in lonely vallies, and may be traced in different 
windings into the plain. It is because the water flows through these, 
invisible of course to the eye, that the Historian said, no water is ever 
seen above the surface of the ground X ; and the immunities which 
he mentions the Persians bestowed upon those who brought water 
* A land of hroolcs of water, of foimtains, and depths that spring out of valleys and hills. 
Deut. viii. 7* 
f In countries where water is so essential to all the purposes of life, how aptly are the 
invaluable blessings of the Spirit’s effusion described under such a metaphor: In the wil¬ 
derness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert; and the parched ground shall become a 
pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.” Isaiah, xxxv. 6, 7« 
^ X Polybius, lib. x. 25. 
Y 2 
