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He spent his life and his entire fortune in carrying out his scheme, and it is due to this that year by year the barren desert shrinks, and cultivation advances. There are to-day other canals, those of Les Alpines, of Langlade, and d'Istres, besides that of Craponne that assist in fertilising the waste.
Parlement exists no longer, or rather is expanded into a National Assembly that is a discredit to all France, and not Provence alone; the Durance has become, thanks to Adam de Craponne, an agent of fertilisation and wealth. In 1845 it carried away the suspension bridge between Beaucaire and Tarascon; the passage of the Rhone is often rendered impossible for days, through its violence.
These migrations date back to a remote epoch, for they are mentioned by Pliny. Previous to the construction of the canal by Craponne, who began it in 1554, the desert reached to Arles; the whole of the plain south of the chain of the Alpines was either marsh lagoon, or a waste of stones, where now grow and luxuriate mulberries, olives, almond trees and vines.
The Basin of Berre A neglected harbour The diluvium Formation of the Crau The two Craus Canal of Craponne Climate of the Crau The Bise and Mistral Force of the wind Cypresses A vision of kobolds.
The canal of Craponne, that conveys the charged waters of the Durance over the Crau of Arles, is effecting artificially over that portion of the rubbly desert, the work that was done by Nature herself in past ages over the whole region from Cette to Aiguesmortes. Now let us examine very shortly the stages through which every mountain-born river runs.
The canal of Craponne was carried by the originator for thirty-three miles, sending out branches at Salon, Eyguieres, and elsewhere. In winter the meadows are green as those of Devon in spring, and the fields yield heavy crops. Indeed, the Durance acts to this region in the same way as does the Nile to Egypt.
This is due to a gentleman of Provence, named Adam de Craponne, born in 1525 at Salon, who conceived the idea of bringing some of the waters of the Durance through the gap where some of its overspill had flowed in the diluvial epoch, by a canal, into the Great Crau, so that it might deposit its rich alluvium over this desert of stones.
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