EMBANKMENT

embankment, in engineering, a mound of earth or stone, usually narrow in comparison with its length, artificially raised above the prevailing level of the ground. embankments serve for two main classes of purpose. on the one hand, they are used to preserve the level of railways, canals and roads, in cases where a valley or piece of low-lying ground has to be crossed. on the other, they are employed to stop or limit the flow of water, either constituting the retaining wells of reservoirs constructed in connexion with water-supply schemes, or protecting low-lying tracts of land from river floods or the encroachments of the sea. the word embankment has thus come to be used for the mass of material, faced and supported by a stone wall and protected by a parapet, placed along the banks of a river where it passes through a city, whether to guard against floods or to gain additional space. such is the thames embankment in london, which carries a broad roadway, while under it runs the underground railway. in this sense an embankment is distinguished from a quay, though the mechanical construction may be the same, the latter word being confined to places where ships are loaded and unloaded, thus differing from the french _quai_, which is used both of embankments and quays, e.g. the _quais_ along the seine at paris. embargo (a spanish word meaning "stoppage"), in international law, the detention by a state of vessels within its ports as a measure of public, as distinguished from private, utility. in practice it serves as a mode of coercing a weaker state. in the middle ages war, being regarded as a complete rupture between belligerent states, operated as a suspension of all respect for the person and property of private citizens; an article of magna carta (1215) provided that "... if there shall be found any such merchants in our land in the beginning of a war, they shall be attached, without damage to their bodies or goods, until it may be known unto us, or our chief justiciary, how our merchants are treated who happen to be in the country which is at war with us; and if ours be safe there, theirs shall be safe in our lands" (art. 48). embargoes in anticipation of war have long since fallen into disuse, and it is now customary on the outbreak of war for the belligerents even to grant a respite to the enemy's trading vessels to leave their ports at the outbreak of war, so that neither ship nor cargo is any longer exposed to embargo. this has been confirmed in one of the hague conventions of 1907 (convention relative to the status of enemy merchant ships at the outbreak of hostilities, oct. 18, 1907), which provides that "when a merchant ship belonging to one of the belligerent powers is at the commencement of hostilities in an enemy port, _it is desirable_ that it should be allowed to depart freely, either immediately, or after a reasonable number of days of grace, and to proceed, after being furnished with a pass, direct to its port of destination, or any other port indicated" (art. 1). the next article of the same convention limits the option apparently granted by the use of the word "desirable," providing that "a merchant ship unable, owing to circumstances of _force majeure_, to leave the enemy port within the period contemplated (in the previous article), or which was not allowed to leave, _cannot_ be confiscated. the belligerent may only detain it, without compensation, but subject to the obligation of restoring it after the war, or requisition it on payment of compensation" (art. 2). (t. ba.)