Trajan's Wall
a line of fortifications in the S. of the Dobrudscha; extends from the Danube, at Czernavoda, to a point on the Black Sea, near Kustendji, a distance of 37 miles. It consists of a double (in some parts a triple) line of earth ramparts about 10 feet high, bounded on its N. side by a natural fosse formed by a marshy valley, which was long erroneously regarded as an old course of the Danube. The wall was an important defense in the Russo-Turkish War of 1854, and the invaders were twice repelled in attempts to pass it at Kostelli (April 10), and Czernavoda (April 20-22). A railway was constructed along the route in 1860, and the great cost has been the main obstacle to a project of carrying a ship canal across the valley for the purpose of avoiding the long and difficult passage by the Sulina mouth of the Danube. Another wall of the same name, constructed by a Roman legion A. D. 105-155, stretches from the Pruth E. to the Black Sea, and is included in the territory "restored" to Russia by the treaty of Berlin, July 13, 1878.