332 
HARBOR AND COAST IMPROVEMENTS. 
nary maps ; but they nevertheless form conspicuous features 
in local topography, and they are attended with consequences 
of great moment to the material and the moral interests of 
men. 
The forces which produce these results are all in a consid¬ 
erable degree subject to control, or rather to direction and 
resistance, by human power, and it is in guiding and combat¬ 
ing them that man has achieved some of his most remarkable 
and honorable conquests over nature. The triumphs in ques¬ 
tion, or what we generally call harbor and coast improve¬ 
ments, whether we estimate their value by the money and 
labor expended upon them, or by their bearing upon the inter¬ 
ests of commerce and the arts of civilization, must take a very 
high rank among the great works of man, and they are fast 
assuming a magnitude greatly exceeding their former relative 
importance. The extension of commerce and of the military 
marine, and especially the introduction of vessels of increased 
burden and deeper draught of water, have imposed upon en¬ 
gineers tasks of a character which a century ago would have 
been pronounced, and, in fact, would have been impracticable ; 
but necessity has stimulated an ingenuity which has contrived 
means of executing them, and which gives promise of yet 
greater performance in time to come. 
Men have ceased to admire the power which heaped up the 
great pyramid to gratify the pride of a despot with a giant 
sepulchre; for many great harbors, many important lines of 
internal communication, in the civilized world, now exhibit 
works which surpass the vastest remains of ancient architec¬ 
tural art in mass and weight of matter, demand the exercise 
of far greater constructive skill, and involve a much heavier 
pecuniary expenditure than would now be required for the 
building of the tomb of Cheops. It is computed that the great 
pyramid, the solid contents of which when complete were about 
3,000,000 cubic yards, could be erected for a million of pounds 
sterling. The breakwater at Cherbourg, founded in rough water 
sixty feet deep, at an average distance of more than two miles 
from the shore, contains double the mass of the pyramid, and 
