CANA´LIS
CANA´LIS (
σωλήν), a
channel or canal, is used, like its English derivatives, to signify a
watercourse, whether open or closed, and next any other passage which
resembles a watercourse.
1. The method of constructing conduits is described by Vitruvius (
8.7), who distinguishes the
canalis, which is lined with masonry (
structiis), from the leaden
fistula
and the earthenware
tubulus (cf.
Suet. Cl. 20). A ruder kind of conduit, which
was made of timber or earthenware to carry water from a spring or stream to
cattle in a meadow, is figured in the illustration below, taken from the
Vatican Virgil (
Verg. G. 3.330:; Varro,
R. R. 3.5, 2). Again by
canalis is denoted a feeding-trough, which was in the case of
domestic birds placed inside their house, and fed from the outside by pipes
(ib. 3.7, 8; 11, 2).
Similarly
canalis denotes the channel of a
sewer, as, for instance, that in the Forum, which is at one spot exposed to
view, and was a favourite station for loungers (Plaut.
Curc.
4.1, 15; Fest. s. v.
canalicolae).
[p. 1.351]
2.
Canalis is also a trench or vein in a
gold-mine (
Plin. Nat. 33.68), the barrel
or
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Canalis. (From the Vatican Virgil.)
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channel for missiles (
σῦριγξ) in
a catapult (
Vitr. 10.13,
7), a reed-pipe (Calp.
Ecl. 4.76); in the medical
writers, a splint (Cels. 8.10, 65) or a canal of the human body (Id. 4.1,
38); and finally, in architecture, the “channel” or flat
surface running between the
abacus and the
echinus inside the volute, as in the accompanying
cut from one of the triglyphs of the temple of Segesta in Sicily (Saglio,
Dict. s.v.). [
COLUMNA] J. H. F.]
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Canalis in Architecture.
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