No. II.-AGRICULTURAL and FINANCIAL DATA connected with the CANALS of the DORA, STURA, and ORCO.

In crossing the Dora-Baltea, we enter upon a tract of country situated between that river and the Sesia, richly supplied with canals of irrigation. The whole of the works within it have, by degrees, become the property of the state, and are administered by engineers acting directly under the ministry of finance. Attached to this department of the ministry is an Uffizio d'Arte, or office of works, under the cognisance of which all projects for irrigation are brought. It is entirely separate from the general department of public works, which is intrusted to a different ministry; and the reason assigned for this division is the relation of the irrigation canals to the revenue of the state, which gives to the finance-minister

Annual expenditure.

Annual income, net.

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Area of irrigation in acres

per cubic foot of discharge per second.

a deeper personal interest in their efficiency and extension than his colleagues can be supposed to have. The general control and supervision of the department is invested in the Intendant-General of Finance, the chief executive officer under the minister himself. The office of works, according to the latest statement accessible to me-namely, the Parliamentary Estimates for 1851-is organised as follows:

A staff of fourteen educated engineers carries on the executive duties of the department, but the attention of these officers is restricted entirely to the works. The financial and distributive details are arranged exclusively by the party or parties to whom government has granted the lease of the canals, which are farmed ordinarily for periods of nine years. There is thus an entire separation between the executive and the financial departments—an arrangement which did not appear to me to work successfully. The engineers had not the same keen interest in spreading the benefits of irrigation, as they would have had if their professional characters had been more directly concerned in the extension of the works and the increase of the revenue; while to farm to contractors, or, as at present, to a single contractor, the whole of the waters the property of the state, seems very objectionable. A preferable arrangement would certainly be, to make each superintendent of a canal responsible both for the works and for the collection of the revenue within his own district, and so have the natural benefit of emulation between the different

superintendents, instead of the deadening influence of a general monopoly in the hands of one or two persons. I am quite sure of this, that the irrigation system of Northern India would never have made the progress it has done, if responsibility for the revenue and charge of the works had not been vested in the same individuals. It is impossible for any one to be zealous in the execution of works, for the results of which the credit is to be reaped by other parties; and I am satisfied, from what I observed, that the working of the Piedmontese system is an illustration of this fact.

The emoluments of the canal engineers appear to us very small, but they are in just proportion to those of public officers generally throughout the country. The engineer-inspectors receive about £120 per annum, the sub-inspectors about £80, and the assistants generally from about £70 to £40, according to grade.

The subordinate permanent establishment for the royal canals consists of one chief guardian and thirty-five ordinary guardians. These men have the local charge of the works, and reside in houses supplied for them on the banks of the different canals. They are generally an intelligent class, and particularly expert in all minor arrangements connected with the practical management of the works, and the distribution of the waters. They have considerable power in relation to the agricultural community, as they are intrusted with the keys of the different irrigation outlets in their districts. As their emoluments are very small, it will surprise no one to hear that a power of this kind is not left inoperative-that, in fact, here as elsewhere, power and poverty do not coexist without the natural results of their union being observable; and the legitimate gains of the guardians on the canals in Piedmont, like those of our own guardians in

India, are held to illegitimate ones.

bear but a small proportion to their The chief guardian receives a salary of about £24 per annum, and the others from £15 to £20, according to standing in the service.

In the hands of the farmer of the canal revenues are vested the powers of entering into contracts for water with all the cultivators-of fixing, in communication with them, the annual rent to be paid, and the manner in which the supply of water is to be issued and measured. In a word, the whole interior economy, so far as the granting of water is concerned, is under the control of this party, who has his own private agents spread over the country to watch his interests and carry into execution his orders, all disputes being submitted to the decision of the ordinary tribunals.

This outline of the organisation of the canal department being premised, we may now proceed to the description of the canals of the Dora-Baltea.

I. CANAL OF IVREA.

The waters of the Dora-Baltea bear with them from the mountains a very large proportion of sandy matter; and hence, when the canal of Ivrea was first opened in 1468, under the regency of the Duchess Violante, sister of Louis XI. of France, and wife of Amadeo IX., duke of Savoy, its channel became very soon choked up by deposits of this material, and, after an existence of about ninety years, was totally abandoned in 1564.

After remaining nearly a century in this neglected condition, the right to the channel was acquired by the Marquis of Pianezza, who reopened it at his own expense in 1651. Since that period up to the present time, the operation of the canal has been uninterrupted. It was once

used, to a very limited extent only, as a canal of navigation, for which, however, its excessive fall, ranging as it does from 4 to 5 feet per mile, makes it very inefficient. The proprietary right to the canal remained in the family of Pianezza for 169 years, and during that time continued to afford a considerable revenue. In 1820, the canal, with all its subordinate channels, was acquired by the state, and since that time has been administered by the finance department.

The canal of Ivrea is the highest in position of the various derivatives of the Dora-Baltea, and its head is situated on the left bank of that river, at a point immediately under the town of Ivrea. Its supply is obtained by means of a long and massive dam of wood and stone work, carried from the immediate vicinity of the bridge across the Dora, in a direction oblique to the stream, as far as the regulator at the mouth of the canal-a distance of about 1500 feet. From Ivrea the canal flows in a south-easterly course to a little distance beyond Cigliano, when it makes a sudden turn to the northward, skirting the high banks of the valley of the Dora for a distance of about five or six miles, after which it again changes its direction, and flows eastward to Vercelli, where its surplus waters finally fall into the Sesia. The sectional area of the main line is gradually diminished, according to the distance from the head, in the following proportions:

I have already had occasion to mention that the slope of the bed is very great, being from four to five and a half