44

HISTORY OF ENGINEERING.

Book I.

which is dry in the summer, are considerable ruins; the rise of this river is nearEleuthera in Mount Cithasron, and in its course it passes the hill of Magoula, where theancient stone quarries are situated ; the river then divides, and both channels enter the

Fig. 53.

ELEUSIS HARBOU

Bay of Salamis at about a distance of 1500 yards from each other. There are someremains of embankments to confine the water along the eastern side of the western river,and others to protect the delta formed by the Cephissus. There are some other engineeringworks apparent on the shore, and the ruins of an aqueduct which supplied the inhabitantsof the town with water.

Corinth stands on the isthmus, on the side of the Peloponnesus , and its ports were oncecelebrated for their convenience and extent; hither resorted ships from Asia and Euiope,it was the centre of commerce, and its citizens became the most wealthy persons of theworld. Around the Peloponnesus the navigation was tedious and dangerous: it wasfound more easy to carry the merchandise across the isthmus from one sea to the other,and sometimes the smaller craft were transported in this way. The merchants attained tosuch wealth and luxury, that it was a common saying, that “ every man was not richenough to live at Corinth .”

The port towards Asia was called Cenchrea ?, and that towards Italy Lecha?um; thelatter lay beneath the city; the road to it was between long walls, 12 stadia or a mile anda half in length.

In the time of Xerxes , the Peloponnesians destroyed the Scironean way, and erected a wallentirely across the isthmus, from the port of Cenchreas to that of Lechamm.

The isthmus which divided the two seas at Scha?nus, the narrowest place, is 40stadia or 5 miles, and here was the Diolcos or drawing-place, where vessels were con-veyed across on machines — a curious and early contrivance, answering the purpose of arailway.

Demetrius Poliorcetes had the two gulfs surveyed, and it being reported that the waterstood higher in the Corinthian than in that at Cenchrea , he abandoned the project of cuttinga canal through the isthmus: it was feared by the engineers of the day that such a work, ifcarried into execution, would have flooded the island of ^Egina , and done considerable mis-chief ; in after times Julius Ca?sar and Caligula turned their attention to this subject, andNero commenced a cutting from Lechaum, and continued it for a length of 4 stadia, or