Canālis
（
σωλήν). A channel or canal, is used, like its English
derivatives, to signify a water course, whether open or closed, and next any other
passage which resembles a watercourse.
The method of constructing conduits is described by Vitruvius (viii. 7), who distinguishes
the canalis, which is lined with masonry (
structilis), from the leaden
fistula and the earthenware
tubulus. A ruder kind
of conduit was made of timber or earthenware to carry water from a spring or stream to cattle
in a meadow. Again,
canalis denotes a feeding-trough, which was in the
case of domestic birds placed inside their house, and fed from the outside by pipes (Varro,
R. R. iii. 7, 8; 11, 12).
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. iv. 1, 15).
Canalis is also a trench or vein in a goldmine (
Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 68); the barrel or channel for missiles (
σῦριγξ) in a catapult (Vitruv. x. 13, 7); a reed-pipe (
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Canalis Calp. in Architecture.
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Calp. Ecl. iv. 76); in the medical writers, a
splint (
Cels. viii. 10, 65) or a canal of the human body (
id. iv. 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. See
Columna.
