When the creek or estuary to be cut off is very wide, the embankment may
be carried out, at leisure, from each side, until the channel is only wide
enough to allow the passage of the tide without too great a rush of water
against the unfinished ends of the work; but, even in these cases, there
will be economy in the use of fascines and piles from the first, or of
stones if these can be readily procured. In wide streams, partial
obstructions of the water course will sometimes induce the deposit of silt
in such quantities as will greatly assist the work. No written description
of a single process will suffice for the direction of those having charge
of this most delicate of all drainage operations. Much must be left to the
ingenuity of the director of the work, who will have to avail himself of
the assistance of such favorable circumstances as may, in the case in
hand, offer themselves.

If the barrier to be built will require a considerable outlay, it should
be placed in the hands of a competent engineer, and it will generally
demand the full measure of his skill and experience.

The work cannot be successful, unless the whole line of the water-front is
protected by a continuous bank, sufficiently high and strong in all of its
parts to resist the action of the highest tides and the strongest waves to
which it will be subjected. As it is always open to inspection, at each
ebb tide, and can always be approached for repair, it will be easy to keep
it in good condition; and, if properly attended to, it will become more
solid and effective with age.

*The removal of the causes of inundation from the upland* is often of
almost equal importance with the shutting out of the sea, since the amount
of water brought down by rivers, brooks, and hill-side wash, is often more
than can be removed by any practicable means, by sluice gates, or pumps.

It will be quite enough for the capacity of these means of drainage, to
remove the rain-water which falls on the flat land, and that which reaches
it by under-ground springs and by infiltration,--its proper drainage-water
in short,--without adding that which, coming from a higher level, may be
made to flow off by its own fall.

Catch-water drains, near the foot of the upland, may be so arranged as to
receive the surface water of the hills and carry it off, always on a level
above that of the top of the embankment, and these drains may often be,
with advantage, enlarged to a sufficient cap