Travelers entering from the desert were confounded by what must have seemed an illusion: a great garden filled with nightingales and roses, cut by canals and terraced promenades, studded with water tanks of turquoise tile in which were reflected the glistening blue curves of a hundred domes.

Taxes were paid in produce and labour on public walls, including city walls, temples, irrigation canals and waterways, producing huge agricultural surpluses.

Many barges, primarily Dutch Barges, which were originally designed for carrying cargo along the canals of Europe, are no longer large enough to compete in this industry with larger newer vessels.

In certain cases, extensive " feeder canals " were built to bring water from sources located far from the canal.

On more modern canals, " guard locks " or gates were sometimes placed to allow a section of canal to be quickly closed off, either for maintenance, or to prevent a major loss of water due to a canal breach.

The oldest known canals were irrigation canals, built in Mesopotamia circa 4000 BC, in what is now modern day Iraq and Syria.

In ancient China, large canals for river transport were established as far back as the Warring States ( 481 – 221 BC ), the longest one of that period being the Hong Gou ( Canal of the Wild Geese ), which according to the ancient historian Sima Qian connected the old states of Song, Zhang, Chen, Cai, Cao, and Wei.

More lasting and of more economic impact were canals like the Naviglio Grande built between 1127 and 1257 to connect Milan with the Ticino River.

The Naviglio Grande is the most important of the lombard “ navigli ” and the oldest functioning canal in Europe. Later, canals were built in the Netherlands and Flanders to drain the polders and assist the transportation of goods.

To break out of the limitations caused by river valleys, the first summit level canals were developed with the Grand Canal of China in 581 – 617 AD whilst in Europe the first, also using single locks, was the Stecknitz Canal in Germany in 1398.

The opening of the Sankey Canal in 1757, followed by the Bridgewater Canal in 1761, which halved the price of coal in Liverpool and Manchester England, respectively, triggered a period of " canal mania " in Britain so that between 1760 and 1820 over one hundred canals were built.

These early canals were constructed, owned, and operated by private joint-stock companies.

During the 19th century in the US, the length of canals grew from to over 4, 000, with a complex network making the Great Lakes navigable, in conjunction with Canada, although some canals were later drained and used as railroad rights-of-way.

Three major canals with very different purposes were built in what is now Canada.

Many notable sea canals were completed in this period, starting with the Suez Canal ( 1869 )-which carries tonnage many times that of most other canals-and the Kiel Canal ( 1897 ), though the Panama Canal was not opened until 1914.

In the 19th century, a number of canals were built in Japan including the Biwako canal and the Tone canal.

These canals were partially built with the help of engineers from the Netherlands and other countries.

At the other end of the scale, tub-boat canals such as the Bude Canal were limited to boats of under 10 tons for much of their length due to the capacity of their inclined planes or boat lifts.

Coal mining, the railways, road haulage, canals and cable and wireless were nationalised in 1947, electricity and gas followed in 1948.

First activities were linked to irrigation and flood control, as demonstrated by traces of dykes, dams, and canals dating back to at least 2000 BCE that were found in ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, as well as around the early settlements of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa in the Indus valley.

The town grew further in the 17th century when the Dutch economy as a whole entered its age of prosperity, and several canals were built connecting it indirectly to Amsterdam.

Song Li's improvements, recommended by a local man named Bai Ying, included damming the rivers Wen and Guang and drawing lateral canals from them to feed reservoir lakes at the very summit, at a small town called Nanwang.

A major initiative to build dams, canals and hydroelectric power plants on the Narmada river valley to provide a tri-state area with drinking water, electricity and increase agricultural production was named the Sardar Sarovar.

The canal was named after King William I of the Netherlands, with " South " added to avoid confusion with two other canals commissioned by and named after the King: the Willemsvaart near Zwolle and the Noord-Willemskanaal in the province of Groningen.

He is reputed to have named that locality, on the junction of two canals, " Little Venice ", a legend that was disputed by Lord Kinross in 1966 and by London Canals.

At that time, real estate developer Mabry McMahan envisioned a bayside luxury development modeled after Venice, Italy ( hence the name " Santa Venetia "-there is no actual Christian saint named Venice or Venetia ), complete with canals and gondolas.

* Suvorov military canals, a series of canals in Finland named after Alexander Suvorov

Although ETH, as a unified and named hypothesis, is a comparatively new concept-one which owes a lot to the saucer sightings of the 1940s – 1960s, it can trace its origins back to a number of earlier events such as the now discredited Martian canals and ancient Martian civilization promoted by astronomer Percival Lowell, popular culture including the writings of H. G. Wells and fellow science fiction pioneers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, who likewise wrote of Martian civilizations, and even to the works of figures such as the Swedish philosopher, mystic and scientist Emanuel Swedenborg, who promoted a variety of unconventional views that linked other worlds to the afterlife.

Subterranean canals ( qanats ), sewers and its famous fire-temple can be named as some pre-Islamic relics.

In the mid-19th century Thomas Mercer named it “ Lake Union ” in expectation of future canals linking it to Puget Sound and to Lake Washington.

The Pawtucket Canal was deepened to become a power canal, and the first of 5. 6 miles of canals in the soon to be named City of Lowell, Massachusetts.

Slimeheads are named for the network of muciferous canals riddling their heads.

Depending on its size, in Thai rivers are either named Maenam ( แม ่ น ้ ำ ), Khlong ( คลอง, also used for artificial canals ), or in northeastern Thailand Lam ( ลำ )

Haversian canals ( sometimes Canals of Havers, named after British physician Clopton Havers ) are a series of tubes around narrow channels formed by lamellae.

Around 1956, Hudgins and Toppino formed a partnership and developed a section of Summerland, named Summerland Cove, with a landing strip flanked by homes on both sides and canals behind the homes.

At his return to Cairo in 1831 Linant was named chief engineer of the public works of Upper Egypt, a position that associated him in a long and fruitful carteer with most of the great works of modernizing Egypt's network of irrigation canals, the grand levées along the Nile.

With his engineering background, he was named as a commissioner to retrace the Mason-Dixon Line in 1849, and was otherwise engaged in the construction of railroads and canals.

The most common theory on the origin of the name is as a derivation of the French word jardin, meaning garden: most streets and canals in the Jordaan are named after trees and flowers.

Category: Wikipedia categories named after canals

* Working Narrow Boat Hadar, a working narrow boat named " Hadar " on UK canals

Category: Wikipedia categories named after canals