" Frezier says the Indians were very industrious in conveying the waters of the rivers through their fields and to their dwellings, and that there were still to be seen in many places Aqueducts formed of earth and stone, and carried along the sides of hills with great labor and ingenuity."

" I have had various opportunities," says a recent traveller, " of closely examining one of these canals, which is formed

at the source of the river Sana, on the right bank, and extends along a distance of fifteen leagues, without reckoning sinuosities, and which consequently supplied a vast population ; particularly one city, whose ruins still remain in the vicinity of a farm now called Cojal."

" These Aqueducts were often of great magnitude, executed with much skill, patience and ingenuity, and were boldly carried along the most precipitous mountains, fre-

;

quently to the distance of fifteen or twenty leagues. Many of them consisted of two conduits, a short distance apart the larger of these was for general use ; the other and smaller, to supply the inhabitants and water the fields, while

the first was cleansing ; a circumstance in which they bear a striking resemblance to those of Mexico."

Molina, in his " Natural and Civil History of Chili," observes, that previous to the invasion of the Spaniards, the

natives practised artificial irrigation, by conveying water from the higher grounds in canals to their fields. Herrera says, many of the vales were exceedingly populous and well