[89] M’Cullough’s ‘Commercial Dictionary,’ Art., Amsterdam.
[90] M’Cullough’s ‘Commercial Dictionary,’ Art., Canals.
[91] ‘Proceedings,’ vol. xxix., p. 289.
[92] Report of the Conference on Inland Navigation at the Society of Arts, 1888.
[93] They are appended to a work which has recently been published, entitled ‘On Dutch Waterways,’ by G. C. Davies.
[CHAPTER XI.]
THE WATERWAYS OF ITALY.
“Though Tiber’s streams immortal Rome behold,
Though foaming Hermus swells with tides of gold,
From Heaven itself, though sevenfold Nilus flows,
And harvests on a hundred realms bestows,
These now no more shall be the Muse’s themes,
Lost in my fame as in the sea their streams.”
—Pope.
There is no characteristic of the ancient Roman Empire that is more striking at the present day, after the lapse of nearly twenty centuries, than the proficiency that the people had attained in the arts and sciences, and more especially in the arts of architecture and engineering. The aqueducts which they built for the supply of water for domestic purposes were vast structures that have hardly been equalled in any subsequent period, and the canals which they constructed for the drainage of morasses, or the transport of armies, were hardly less remarkable.