Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1877-12-29

tude to the projected draining of tn
Zuyder Zee has been accomplished i
Italy, only some auxiliary operations @
minor consequence still awaiting com
pletiOn. We refer to the draining O
the Fucine Lake, executed by the Primo
Torlonia, an undertaking which ha
exacted the labor of twenty-five year
and an outlay of ten million dollars
BY this achievement forty thousan'
acres of rich land have been opened Il
tillage, and scheme which had vainl,
taxed the resources of the ancient 70
man Empire is translated into fact.
The Fucine Lake, and the mountain
locked basin of which until lately it en-
crossed the larger part, is better known
to the student than to the traveller. TIL,
region is singularly difficult of access
lying as it does in the exact heart of tn,
Italian peninsula, and embedded in tn,
Apennine chain. No modern railway
has replaced the Valerian road which
traversed the district eighteen centuries
ago. When this great highway wal
built across the mountains by Claudiu;
Cesar the edge of the lake was dotted
with thriving towns, and its fruitful
slopes formed one of the granaries Of
Rome. 1t was in the reign of the same
Emperor that the design of sluicing of
the waters of the Fucine cistern was
adopted, and the notorious freedman
Narcissus was charged with the conduct
of the enterprise. Inasmuch as the
main outlines of the plan conceived and
brought to the verge of fulfilment by
the Roman. engineers have been fol-
lowed in the modern works, it may be
well to mark the physical conditions OF
the problem.
The Fucine Lake was vast reservoir,
replenished by the rainfall and a num-
Der of mountain streams, but without
natural outlet. Evacuation, therefore,
by dredging and deepening an existing
channel was plainly out of the question.
Some three miles, however, to the
northwest runs the river Liri, at an al
titude much lower than that of the ba-
sin. 1t is true that the high mountain
of Salviano rears its bulk between the
river and the lake, but this obstacle the
engineers of Claudius proposed to sur
mount by piercing the hill at depth of
some three hundred yards. According
", the head OF the sluice on the north
west rim of the cistern was fixed at a
point twenty-five yards above the bot
tom of the Liri, while the mouth being
opened about thirteen yards above the
river bed, there resulted total incline
of nine yards in a course of three and a
half miles. Thirty thousand wOrkmen
are said to have been employed for
eleven years in the undertaking, and the
tunnel was actually constructed, but so
that an attempt to draw off
the waters of the reservoir entailed q
which went near to
ruin the imperial favorite.
1t would seem that Narcissus
had nothing to learn from public serv-
ants of our day, for he was accused of
embezzling gigantic sums through col
lusiOns with contractors. 1t appears,
however, that at a later period, under
he Emperor Hadrian, the sluice was so
lar turned to account as to considerably
ow,H. the level of the lake.
Neglected in the middle ages, the RO-
nan works lost even this measure of eff
iciency, the waters of the basin recov-
,red their ancient area, and the periodi-
al foundations wrought widespread de-
1t was one of these calami-
les, the terrible flood of 1916, which
'oused the Neopolitan Government to
lttempt the repair of the old culvert.
But the task was Onerous and the out
ay stinted, and the sluice was scarcely
opened when the freshet of 1851 burst
he locks and blocked up large Sec
ion of the channel under an avalanche
Il earth and stones. When, therefore,
! company was organized with view
f draining the basin, it soon appeared
hat the scheme presented difficulties
ar exceeding their expectations or their
4 ss;l;sssrls: IL. p.;,.s.s