Word Finder - embankments

definition

A long mound of earth, stone, or similar material, usually built for purposes such as to hold back or store water, for protection from weather or enemies, or to support a road or railway.

Earlier dams had just been created by making earth embankments.

The whole country has thus been divided into a series of oblongs, surrounded by embankments on three sides and by the desert slopes on the fourth.

An endeavour is made so to plan the works of a railway that the quantity of earth excavated in cuttings shall be equal to the quantity required for the embankments; but this is not always practicable, and it is sometimes advantageous to obtain the earth from some source close to the embankment rather than incur the expense of hauling it from a distant cutting.

At the present time the preservation of the embankments about the point of bifurcation demands the constant care of the Bagdad government.

On the one hand he may make the line follow the natural inequalities of the ground as nearly as may be, avoiding the elevations and depressions by curves; or on the other he may aim at making it as nearly straight and level as possible by taking it through the elevations in cuttings or tunnels and across the depressions on embankments or bridges.

For conveying small streams through embankments, channels or culverts are constructed in brickwork or masonry.

In Berlin, on the Stadtbahn - which for a part of its length traverses private property - masonry arches, or earthen embankments between retaining walls, were substituted for the metallic structure wherever possible.

By degrees the bed rises, and the people build embankments to prevent the river from overflowing.

The embankments may be from 3 to 7 ft.

The town was formerly much exposed to avalanches and floods, which are now less frequent owing to the construction of embankments and replanting of the hillsides.

Besides the delta of the Po and the large marshy tracts which it forms, there exist on both sides of it extensive lagoons of salt water, generally separated from the Adriatic by narrow strips of sand or embankments, partly natural and partly artificial, but havin openings which admit the influx and efflux of the sea-water, and serve as ports for communication with the mainland.

The former category comprises the maintenance of provincial roads, bridges and watercourse embankments;, secondary education, whenever this is n.ot provided for by private, institutions or by the state (elementary education being maintained by the communes), and the maintenance of foundlings and pauper lunatics.

The natural process of sedimentation assisted the gradual artificial drainage of the marshes by means of embankments confining the river.

The Thames follows a devious course through London, and the fine embankments on its north side, nowhere continuing uninterruptedly for more than 2 m., do not form important thoroughfares, with the exception of the Victoria Embankment.

Below these the grandest of the embankments extends to the City at Blackfriars.

The lines are single, for the most part; and as the embankments, the cuttings, the culverts and the bridge-piers have not been constructed for a double line, any change now would be very costly.

The Bhutias lay out their fields in a series of terraces cut out of the sides of the hills; each terrace is riveted and supported by stone embankments, sometimes 20 ft.

These artificial lakes are usually formed by throwing embankments across the lower extremities of valleys, and thus arresting and accumulating the waters flowing through them.

Along the banks of the Thames the coast is generally low and marshy, embankments being in several places necessary to prevent inundation.

The railway runs right through the precinct, and much of Magnesia has gone into its bridges and embankments.

As the bed rises the embankments must be raised too, until the stream is flowing many feet above the level of the surrounding country.

It required some fifteen or more years to repair damages from this outbreak, and to confine the stream by new embankments.

The Murrumbidgee is here spanned by a steel viaduct, the approaches of which are formed by heavy embankments.

Many hundred acres of land have been reclaimed from the sea here and along the coast of the bay; there are costly embankments and good harbourage.

Low embankments had originally been built on west, east and south, the north boundary being formed by the natural slope of the hill.

The river was enclosed between stone embankments; sewerage and pure water were supplied, gas and electric light installed; and horse or electric tramways laid down in the principal thoroughfares, which were paved with granite or wood.

This country is protected from inundation by immense embankments, so that almost the whole area is suitable for rice cultivation.

Since 1877 railway communication has been largely supplemented by steam-tramways, which either run along the main roads or across the country on special embankments, while one of them is ' The dates indicate the period of construction of the different sections.

The expense of forming canals, embankments and sluices for warping land is from Do to £20 an acre.

When the surface-water of a river is higher than the fields right and left, there is nothing easier than to breach the embankments and flood the fields - in fact, it may be more difficult to prevent their being flooded than to flood them - but in ordinary floods the Nile is never higher than all the bordering lands, and in years of feeble flood it is higher than none of them.

These are frequently encroached upon by the sea, while the flat shore on the south is protected by embankments.

In many places the sea has encroached; even in the 19th century entire villages were destroyed, but during the last twenty years of the century systematic efforts were made to secure the coast by groynes and embankments.

These towns are situated in a valley on the Hunter River, which is liable to sudden floods, to guard against which the river is protected by stone embankments at West Maitland, while there are flood-gates at East Maitland.

As the freshets begin to lessen and retire into the deeper channels, the currents form natural embankments on their edges, preventing the return of a small portion of water which is thus left stagnant on the sands, and exposed to the action of the sun's rays.

The lower course of the Tiber has been from the earliest ages subject to frequent and severe inundations; of more recent ones, those of 1598, 1870 and 1900 have been especially destructive, but since the year 1876 the municipality of Rome, assisted by the Italian Government, has taken steps to check, and possibly to prevent these calamities within the city by constructing embankments of stone, resting on caissons, for a total distance (counting in both sides of the river) of 6 miles.

It is seldom more than a few feet above the sealevel, while at places it is below it, and it has consequently to be defended by an extensive _ system of dykes or embankments resembling those of Holland.

The harbour works board, constituted in 1877, improved the river channel and the bar; made wharves and embankments; lighted the lower reaches of the river by electricity, so as to allow vessels to enter by night; and constructed a breakwater and counter-mole outside the bar of the river Nervion, between Santurce, Portugalete and the opposite headland at the village of Algorta, so as to secure deep anchorage and easy access to the river.

The river is embanked from Piacenza, and continuously from Cremona, the total length of the embankments exceeding 600 m.

The scene presents to a European eye a panorama of singular novelty and interest - rice fields covered with water to a great depth; the ears of grain floating on the surface; the stupendous embankments, which restrain without altogether preventing the excesses of the inundations; and peasants going out to their daily work with their cattle in canoes or on rafts.

Above ground, if the water level is to be higher than the natural boundary, the same puddle walls or cores are carried up to the required level, and are supported as they rise by embankments of earth on either side.

The embankments on either side of the puddle wall are merely to support the puddle and to keep it moist above the ground level when the reservoir is low.

The less permeable materials should be confined to the inner parts of the embankments; this is especially important in the case of the inner embankment in order that, when the water level falls, they may remain moist without becoming liable to slip. The inner slope should be protected from the action of waves by so-called " hand-pitching," consisting of roughlysquared stonework, bedded upon a layer of broken stone to prevent local disturbance of the embankment by action of the water between the joints of the larger stones.

There is no serious difficulty in so constructing walls of this kind as to be practically water-tight while they remain unbroken; but owing to the settlement of the earthen embankments and the changing level of saturation they are undoubtedly subject to irregular stresses which cannot be calculated, and under which, speaking generally, plastic materials are much safer.

But like every pure theory the principles of conjugate pressures in earth may lead to danger if not applied with due consideration for the angle of repose of the material, the modifications brought about by the limited width of artificial embankments, the possible contraction away from the masonry, of clayey materials during dry weather for some feet in depth and the tendency of surface waters to produce scour between the wall and the embankment.

Both the Neuadd and the Fisher Tarn dams are largely dependent upon the support of earthen embankments with much economy and with perfectly satisfactory results.

At the lock itself the embankments merged into stone built abutments which connected up with the bridge.

The southern abutment was flanked by two retaining walls which held small triangular embankments against its sides, thus strengthening it laterally.

Almost the whole length of both banks of the Creek was still lined with earthen embankments in the 1770s.

Birds of prey are often to be seen hovering over motorway embankments.

The old OS map shows the branch heading south east, between flood embankments.