The canal de Marseille, constructed from 1837 to 1848, which has metamorphosed the town and its arid surroundings by bringing to them the waters of the Durance, leaves the river opposite Pertuis. It has a length of 97 miles (including its four main branches) of which 13 are underground, and irrigates some 7500 acres. After crossing the valley of the Arc, between Aix and Rognac, by the magnificent aqueduct of Roquefavour, it purifies its waters, charged with ooze, in the basins of Réaltort. It draws about 2200 gallons of water per second from the Durance, supplies 2450 horse-power to works in the vicinity of Marseilles, and ensures a good water-supply and efficient sanitation to the city.
Marseilles is the headquarters of the XV. army corps and the seat of a bishop and a prefect. It has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a board of trade arbitration, and a branch of the Bank of France. The educational institutions include a faculty of science, a school of medicine and pharmacy, and a faculty (_faculté libre_) of law, these three forming part of the university of Aix-Marseille; lycées for boys and girls, a conservatoire of music, a school of fine art, a higher school of commerce, a school for ships' boys, a school of navigation and industrial schools for both sexes.
_Trade and Industry._--Marseilles is the western emporium for the Levant trade and the French gate of the Far East. It suffers, however, from the competition of Genoa, which is linked with the Rhine basin by the Simplon and St Gotthard railway routes, and from lack of communication with the inland waterways of France. In January 1902 the chamber of deputies voted £3,656,000 for the construction of a canal from Marseilles to the Rhone at Arles. This scheme was designed to overcome the difficulties of egress from the Rhone and to make the city the natural outlet of the rich Rhone basin. Much of the activity of the port is due to the demand for raw material created by the industries of Marseilles itself. The imports include raw silk, sesame, ground-nuts and other oil-producing fruits and seeds largely used in the soap manufacture, cereals and flour, wool, hides and skins, olive and other oils, raw cotton, sheep and other livestock, woven goods, table fruit, wine, potatoes and dry vegetables, lead, cocoon silk, coffee, coal, timber. The total value of imports was £64,189,000 in 1907, an increase of £18,000,000 in the preceding decade. The exports, of which the total value was £52,901,000 (an increase of £21,000,000 in the decade) included cotton fabrics, silk fabrics, cereals and flour, hides and skins, wool fabrics, worked skins, olive and other oils, chemical products, wine, refined sugar, raw cotton, wool, coal, building-material, machinery and pottery.