The Egyptians appear to have originated the storage of river water by diverting some of the flood water of the Nile into enclosed depressions which served the purpose of reservoirs. Lake Moeris was a well known instance with an area of 47 square miles, and the same system was adopted in Babylonia for utilizing the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. The ancient Greeks devoted much attention to the supply of water and evinced considerable skill in its conveyance from sources in the mountains to their cities, but as they were able to carry their conduits along the contour lines of the mountain slopes and tunnel through the spurs and ridges, these works, though well adapted for their purpose, have left comparatively few visible remains. When Rome was the capital of the known world, it was abundantly supplied with water through several conduits from sources at a distance; and the most notable features of these works was the boldness with which in_ Italy and the countries under Roman domination these conduits were conveyed across intervening valleys on arched masonry or brick aqueducts of imposing dimensions, the remains of which constitute the most celebrated engineering records of olden times. Rome was for the first time supplied with water from a distance in 312 B.C., when Appius Claudius had a conduit constructed named after him Aqua Appia, which was carried almost wholly underground and had a length of about 10} miles. This conduit conveyed water from the base of the Alban Hills to the city. Forty years later, another conduit was constructed to bring water from the Anio River near Tivoli. This latter conduit was about 403 miles long, and was known by the name of Anio Vetus.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.