_The River Po._—The Po, which takes its rise at Mont Viso, crosses the whole plain of Upper Piedmont, a plain formed of a deep alluvial soil, very fertile, and well cultivated. Passing through territory of Turin, it receives the drainage of the rich meadows, as also the sewage of that town, and before reaching Chivasso it receives the rivers Dora Riparia, Stura, Orco, and Malone. The waters of the Po in floods are dense with rich alluvial matter, of the fertilising properties of which evident proofs may be observed throughout the course of this river. After great floods, as if by magic, bare shoals of gravel become covered with a deep strata of alluvial soil, on which the seeds of trees and shrubs carried down by the waters soon take root, and in a very short time they are covered with a luxuriant vegetation. The waters of the Po on this account are highly valued for irrigation, as also from the fact of its temperature being higher than that of its tributaries. The fertilising properties of this water are now fully appreciated in Lomellina, where large tracts of land which were formerly bare and arid wastes, are now converted into rich meadows and rice fields, through the agency of the waters which have been brought to bear upon them by the Canal Cavour, already alluded to. Even in the Vercellese, where the want of water is not so much felt, the waters of the Po, introduced into the existing canals, and mingling with those of the Dora, tend to modify the extreme coldness of the latter river, due to its origin in the glaciers of the Val d’Aosta and the siliceous-magnesian sands that its waters contain in suspension. It is, therefore, with just pride that Italians have named the Po the “Nile of Italy.” Although the Po is the only extensive river basin in Italy, there are many other rivers in that country that are more or less navigable, some of them inclined to the Tyrrhenian Sea, and some to the Ionian Sea, but most of them, including the Po, to the Adriatic. _Projected Canals._—Among the proposals recently put forward for extending, by artificial means, the commerce and navigation of Italy, one of the most important is designed to provide for the construction of a ship canal to connect the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the Adriatic, near Fano and Castro. The distance to be traversed by this canal would be 175 miles, and the cost has been estimated at about 20 millions sterling. It is claimed that the proposed canal would be of great advantage to the navigation between the east and the west coasts of the Peninsula. In 1889 a company was formed in London for the purpose of establishing a system of canal, lake, and river navigation in the north of Italy. This company expects to carry a very large share of the traffic at lower rates than those quoted by the railways. FOOTNOTES: [94] Ann., lib. xii. cap. 56. [95] Æn., t.v. 563.