The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1927-04-19
MAP is CHANGED
BY ENGINEERING
Accomplishments in This
Science Among Won.
ders of the World.


Washington.-The moving of
river in Pennsylvania to an artif-
cial cut so that it's old bed may be
filed and used for a railroad yard
is recent skirmish in the long
battle of man to change the face
of the earth.
1.-THE accomplishments of civ
ilization most easily noticed are in
large part engineering accomplish
ments," says a bulletin from the
Washington headquarters of the
National Geographic society $50
indefatigably has man busted him
self making over his environment
that much of his handiwork would
stand out to an observer posted
on the moon with a telescope equal
to our best. The irregular splotches
of our cities with their straight
lines would show up all around
the world. Here and there rail-
roads and their cuts and clearings
would catch the eye as would some
long straight stretches of highway.
"The most ancient of the earth's
great structures, the Pyramid of
Cheops, should be plainly visible,
especially when two sides are in
shadow; and the moon observer
could probably pick out that other
old engineering triumph, the Great
Wall of China, shaking its $500
miles over mountains and valleys.
Few canals, probably, would ap-
pear to such hypothetical survey
from the moon, since they would
be indistinguishable for the most
part, from natural streams.
The terrestrial observer who
seeks evidences of mans reshaping
of the earth will find them on every
hand. On our own continent and
in Europe, especially, a veritable
network of railways and roads lies
over the countryside. There are
few major streams but that are
spanned by bridges or made by
dams to stand and deliver water
for irrigation or power to be turned
to any use that mans within may
dictate. A goodly number of our
hills and mountains have been
honeycombed by the shafts and gal
leries of mines, or pierced by rail-
way tunnels. Man has ever bur-
rowed his way under great rivers
to make way for city transit lines,
railways, vehicles and foot passen-
gers.
Cities Present Engineering Feats.
every great city is itself huge
and never-finished engineering
task. There are few residents of
New York or London or Paris who
would not be surprised, if cross
sections of their city could be laid
bare, at the completely of its UNI
foreground facilities, its multi
plicity of subways, water tunnels
and pipes, wire-conduits and sew
ers. Above ground buildings are
constantly being erected and demol-
-ished, railways repaired, pave
ments laid. Galveston, Texas,
owes its continued existence to
great granite sea-wall New Or
leans, to it's levees; Venice and
Leningrad in large part from a
multitude of piles driven into mud
banks; and other cities in various
parts of the world must credit en-
cheering skill for their sites or for
their protection.
zone of the most striking debts
of country to engineering is to be
found in the Netherlands. The
country's name itself hints at the
story; nearly half it's area lies be-
low the level of the sea which is
kept from engulfng the lowlands
only by hundreds of miles of man
made bikes and sluicegates. And
only constant watchfulness and
work keeps this below-sea-level
country habitable. Entertainments
must be paroled and repaired con-
stantly. Seepage continues night
and day and pumps must be kept
operating continually to lift mil
lions of gallons of water from the
lowest catchment basin to canals
high enough to carry it into the sea.
Canals were among the earliest
important engineering projects I'M
dertaken by man. Near the dawn
of history some 5000 years ago
great irrigation canals that We're
virtually artificial rivers existed
in the valleys of the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia.
They We're demolished by Mogul in
vaders 700 years ago, but traces
of the huge channels still remain.
In Egypt a ship canal connecting
the Nile and the Red sea was dug
1000 years before Christ. In the
Fifth century B. c. the Chinese be.
gan the Grand canal, finished IL
centuries later. This S50mile wa
terway is the Oldest and longest
boat canal in existence.
Dams Are Recent Devices.
"All the earlier canals were in
land. Not until 1869, when the Suez
canal was completed, did the world
possess an inter-ocean waterway.
Its only rival has been the Panama