Hull, and Bristol, by a system of inland water-communication. With this object, as we have seen, he had often visited the Earl at his seat at Trentham, and discussed with him the plans by which this truly magnificent enterprise was to be carried out; and he had frequently visited the Earl of Stamford at his seat at Enville for the same purpose. But those schemes were too extensive and costly to be carried out by the private means of either of these noblemen, or even by both combined. They were, therefore, under the necessity of stirring up the latent enterprise of the landed proprietors in their respective districts, and waiting until they had received a sufficient amount of local support to enable them to act with vigour in carrying their great design into effect. The Duke of Bridgewater's scheme of uniting Manchester and Liverpool by an entirely new line of water-communication, cut across bogs and out of the solid earth in some places, and carried over rivers and valleys at others by bridges and embankments, was scarcely less bold or costly. Though it was spoken of as another of the Duke's" castles in the air," and his resources were by no means overflowing at the time he projected it, he nevertheless determined to enter upon the undertaking, and to go on alone with it though no one else should join him. The Duke thus proved himself a real Dux or leader of the industrial enterprise of his district; and by cutting his canal, and providing a new, short, and cheap water-way between Liverpool and Manchester, which was afterwards extended through the counties of Chester, Stafford, and Warwick, he thus unquestionably paved the way for the creation and development of the modern manufacturing system existing in the north-western counties of England. We need scarcely say how admirably he was supported throughout by the skill and indefatigable energy of his engineer. Brindley's fertility in resources was the theme of general admiration. Arthur Young, who visited the works during their progress, speaks with enthusiastic

admiration of his "bold and decisive strokes of genius," his "penetration which sees into futurity, and prevents obstructions unthought of by the vulgar mind, merely by foreseeing them: a man," says he, "with such ideas, moves in a sphere that is to the rest of the world imaginary, or at best a terra incognita."

It would be uninteresting to describe the works of the Bridgewater Canal in detail: one part of a canal is usually so like another, that to do so were merely to involve a needless amount of repetition of a necessarily dry description. We shall accordingly content ourselves with referring to the original methods by which Brindley contrived to overcome the more important difficulties of the undertaking. From Longford Bridge, where the new works commenced, the canal, which was originally about eight yards wide and four feet deep, was carried upon an embankment of about a mile in extent across the valley of the Mersey. One might naturally suppose that the conveyance of such a mass of earth must have exclusively employed all the horses and carts in the neighbourhood for years. But Brindley, with his usual fertility in expedients, contrived to make the construction of the canal itself subservient to the completion of the remainder. He had the stuff required to make up the embankment brought in boats partly from Worsley and partly from other parts of the canal where the cutting was in excess; and the boats, filled with this stuff, were conducted from the canal along which they had come into caissons or cisterns placed at the point over which the earth and clay had to be deposited.

The boats, being double, fixed within two feet of each other, had a triangular trough supported between them of sufficient capacity to contain about seventeen tons of earth. The bottom of this trough consisted of a line of trap-doors, which flew open at once on a pin being drawn, and discharged their whole burthen into the bed of the canal in an instant. Thus the level of

the embankment was raised to the point necessary to enable the canal to be carried forward to the next length. Arthur Young was of opinion that the saving effected by constructing the Stretford embankment in this way, instead of by carting the stuff, was equivalent to not less than five thousand per cent.! The materials of the caissons employed in executing this part of the work were afterwards used in forming temporary locks across the valley of the Bollin, whilst the embankment was being constructed at that point by a process almost the very reverse, but of like ingenuity.

BRINDI EY'S BALI AST BOATS.

In the same valley of the Mersey the canal had to be carried over a large brook subject to heavy floods, by means of a strong bridge of two arches, adjoining which was a third, affording provision for a road. Further on, the canal was carried over the Mersey itself upon a bridge with one arch of seventy feet span. Westward of this river lay a very difficult part of the work, occasioned by the carrying of the navigation over the Sale Moor Moss. Many thought this an altogether impracticable thing; as not only had the hollow trunk of earth in which the canal lay to be made water-tight, but to preserve the level of the water-way it must necessarily be raised considerably above the level of the Moor across which it was to be laid. Brindley overcame the difficulty in the following manner. He made a strong casing of

timber-work outside the intended line of embankment on either side of the canal, by placing deal balks in an erect position, backing and supporting them on the outside with other balks laid in rows, and fast screwed together; and on the front side of this woodwork he had his earth

work brought forward, hard rammed, and puddled, to form the navigable canal; after which the casing was moved onward to the part of the work further in advance, and the bottom having previously been set with rubble and gravel, the embankment was thus carried forward by degrees, the canal was raised to the proper level, and the whole was substantially and satisfactorily finished.

A steam-engine of Brindley's contrivance was erected at Dunham Town Bridge to pump the water from the foundations there. The engine was called a Sawney, for what reason is not stated, and, for long after, the bridge was called Sawney's Bridge. The foundations of the under-bridge, near the same place, were popularly supposed to be set on quicksand; and old Lord Warrington, when he had occasion to pass under it, would pretend cautiously to look about him, as if to examine whether the piers were all right, and then run through as fast as he could. A tall poplar-tree stood at Dunham Banks, on which a board was nailed showing the height of the canal level, and the people long after called the place by the name of "The Duke's Folly," believing his scheme to be altogether impracticable. But the skill of the engineer baffled these and other prophets of evil; and the success of his expedients, in nearly every case of difficulty that occurred, must certainly be regarded as remarkable, considering the novel and unprecedented character of the undertaking.

Brindley invariably contrived to economise labour as much as possible, and many of his expedients with this object were very ingenious. So far as he could, he endeavoured to make use of the canal itself for the purpose of forwarding the work. He had a floating blacksmith's forge and shop, provided with all requisite appliances, fitted up in one barge; a complete carpenter's shop in another; and a mason's shop in a third; all of which were floated on as the canal advanced, and were thus always at hand to supply the requisite facilities for prosecuting the opera

tions with economy and despatch. Where there was a break in the line of work, occasioned, for instance, by the erection of some bridge not yet finished, the engineer had similar barges constructed and carried by land to other lengths of the canal which were in progress, where they were floated and advanced in like manner for the use of the workmen. When the bridge across the Mersey, which was pushed on with all despatch with the object of economising labour and cost of materials, was completed, the stone, lime, and timber were brought along the canal from the Duke's own property at Worsley, as well as supplies of clay for the purpose of puddling the bottom of the water-way; and thus the work rapidly advanced at all points.

As one of the great objections made to the construction of the canal had been the danger threatened to the surrounding districts by the bursting of the embankments, Brindley made it his object to provide against the occurrence of such an accident by an ingenious expedient. He had stops or floodgates contrived and laid in various parts of the bed of the canal, across its bottom, so that, in the event of a breach occurring in the bank and a rush of waters taking place, the current which must necessarily set in to that point should have the effect of immediately raising the valvular floodgates, and so shutting off the stream and preventing the escape of more water than was contained in the division between the two nearest gates on either side of the breach. At the same time, these floodgates might be used for cutting off the waters of the canal at different points, for the purpose of making any necessary repairs in particular lengths; the contrivance of waste tubes and plugs being so arranged that the bed of any part of the canal, more especially where it passed over the bridges, might be laid bare in a few hours, and the repairs executed at once. In devising these ingenious expedients, it ought to be remembered that Brindley had no previous experience

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