Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/388

 366 HISTORY UK ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS I)KIKNI>ENCIES. traditions were born which were afterwards perfected by the Phoenicians of Africa and finally embodied by Mago, the Car- thaginian captain, in a book which the Roman Senate caused to be translated into Latin. 1 Before these Syrian plains would yield plentiful crops they had to be well watered, and the crowded urban population required their supply of the same element. Accustomed as they were to rock cutting, the Phoenicians would have no difficulty in making conduits to carry the torrents of the Lebanon on to and across the plain. But of all the hydraulic works in Syria which date from the Phoenician period the most curious is the well of Ras-cl-Ain, " The head of the springs." About four miles south of Tyre and a few hundred yards from the sea several springs rise with great force within thick-walled octagonal towers, which are eighteen to twenty feet high. There are four of these fountains. The most abundant is ninety-three feet deep. " They are true artesian wells, fed by the rains and snows of the Lebanon. The arrange- ment of the cretaceous strata in the neighbouring mountains leaves no doubt upon the point. The basins are natural openings through which the water is forcibly driven by strong pressure from below." Is it to the Romans or to the Phoenicians that the credit of having regulated the openings, of having built those solid sheaths of masonry by which the water is driven to a convenient height above the plain, is due ? We are inclined. to believe that the Phoenicians vere the first to think of the contrivance, which is as effective as it is simple. 3 These are the only springs in the whole neighbourhood of Tyre, and so long as the water was not con- strained to mount in a tube it must have been lost, as it is now, in 1 COLUMELLA, I. i. 13. 2 LORTET, La Syrie d'aujourifhui, p. 128. 3 The following passage from STRABO shows that the Phoenicians had grasped the physical law by virtue of which the water rises in the artesian well. " In war time they obtain water a little in front of the city, from the channel (between the island and the mainland), in which there is an abundant spring. The water is obtained by letting down from a boat, which serves for the purpose, and inverting over the spring (at the bottom of the sea), a wide-mouthed funnel of lead, the end of which is contracted to a moderate sized opening ; round this is fastened a leathern pipe which we may call the neck, which receives the water forced up from the spring through the funnel. The water first forced up is sea-water, but the boatmen wait for the flow of pure and potable water, which is received into vessels ready for the purpose, in as large a quantity as may be required, and carry it into the city."