PREFACE.

...in order to succeed in working securely, and what would they not have given to have instructions on this matter suitable for guiding them! For want of such aid, it is much to be feared that one might carry out trials burdensome to the State original: "onéreux à l'Etat." Bélidor highlights that hydraulic failures are not just personal setbacks but public financial losses, as many projects were funded by the royal treasury.; how many works have failed through faulty construction! One never feels one's poverty original: "indigence." In this context, it refers to a lack of necessary knowledge or resources rather than financial poverty. more acutely than when one finds oneself in the position of having to produce that which one only understands imperfectly.

Hydraulic Architecture encounters far more difficulties in its execution than Civil Architecture While Civil Architecture refers to the design of buildings on land, Hydraulic Architecture refers to what we would now call civil engineering involving water—dams, locks, and ports.; water is a terrible element to subdue when one must solidly establish significant works within it, despite the furies of the sea or the impetuous currents of great rivers. How much art, skill, and constancy are required to succeed? Whereas in Civil Architecture, one is sure of one's actions through the application of a few general rules, authorized by custom and good taste. Furthermore, it is much easier to learn the latter, for which we have many good books, while we have none for the former; for can one take into account what some authors have said in their collections of machines original: "recueils de machines." This refers to "Theatrum Machinarum" books, which were popular at the time and featured illustrations of complex mechanisms but often lacked practical engineering theory or construction instructions., where they determine no rule for guiding oneself in execution? Nevertheless, the Arts are only perfected insofar as they are transmitted in the writings of those who have treated them, since it is only by studying the best examples of each type of work that one can deduce judicious maxims original: "maximes judicieuses." These are the fundamental principles or "best practices" of the engineering profession..

Everyone agrees that to properly conduct significant works, a certain capability is required which is only acquired through long experience; and it is right to conclude that it is only after having seen the Masters of the Art operate for a long time that one