the canal conferred upon the inhabitants of the districts through which it passed. As we have already seen, Staffordshire and the adjoining counties had been inaccessible during the chief part of each year. The great natural wealth which they contained was of little value, because it could with difficulty be got at; and even when reached, there was still greater difficulty in distributing it. Coal could not be worked at a profit, the price of land-carriage so much restricting its use, that it was placed altogether beyond the reach of the great body of consumers. It is difficult now to realise the condition of poor people situated in remote districts of England less than a century ago. In winter time they shivered over scanty wood-fires, for timber was almost as scarce and as dear as coal. Fuel was burnt only at cookingtimes, or to cast a glow about the hearth in the winter evenings. The fireplaces were little apartments of themselves, sufficiently capacious to enable the whole family to ensconce themselves under the chimney, to listen to stories or relate to each other the events of the day. Fortunate were the villagers who lived hard by a bog or a moor, from which they could cut peat or turf at will. They ran all risks of ague and fever in summer, for the sake of the ready fuel in winter. But in places remote from bogs, and scantily timbered, existence was scarcely possible; and hence the settlement and cultivation of the country were in no slight degree retarded until comparatively recent times, when better communications were opened up.

So soon as the canals were made, and coals could be readily conveyed along them at comparatively moderate rates, the results were immediately felt in the increased comfort of the people. Employment became more abundant, and industry sprang up in their neighbourhood in all directions. The Duke's canal, as we have seen, gave the first great impetus to the industry of Manchester and that district. The Grand Trunk had pre

cisely the same effect throughout the Pottery and other districts of Staffordshire; and their joint action was not only to employ, but actually to civilize the people. The salt of Cheshire could now be manufactured in immense quantities, readily conveyed away, and sold at a comparatively moderate price in all the midland districts of England. The potters of Burslem and Stoke, by the same mode of conveyance, received their gypsum from Northwich, their clay and flints from the seaports now directly connected with the canal, returning their manufactures by the same route. The carriage of all articles being reduced to about one-fourth of their previous rates,' articles of necessity and comfort, such as had formerly been unknown except amongst the wealthier classes, came into common use amongst the people. Existence ceased to be difficult, and came to be easy. Led by the enterprise of Wedgwood and others like him, new branches of industry sprang up, and the manufacture of earthenware, instead of being insignificant and comparatively unprofitable, which it was before his time, became a staple branch of English trade. Only about ten years after the Grand Trunk Canal had been opened, Wedgwood stated in evidence before the House of Commons, that from 15,000 to 20,000

The following comparison of the rates per ton at which goods were conveyed by land-carriage before the opening of the Grand Trunk Canal, and those at which they were subsequently carried by it, will show how great was the advantage conferred on the country by the introduction of navigable canals :-“ The cost of carrying a ton of goods from Liverpool to Etruria, the centre of the Staffordshire Potteries, by landcarriage, was 50s.; the Trent and Mersey reduced it to 13s. 4. The land-carriage from Liverpool to Wolverhampton was 57. a ton; the canal reduced it to 17. 5s. The land-carriage from Liverpool to Birmingham, and also to Stourport, was 51.

a ton; the canal reduced both to 17. 10s. . . . . . Thus the cost of inland transport was reduced, on the average, to about one-fourth of the rate paid previous to the introduction of canal-navigation. The advantages were enormous: wheat, for example, which formerly could not be conveyed a hundred miles, from corngrowing districts to the large towns and manufacturing districts, for less than 20s. a quarter, could be conveyed for about 5s. a quarter. These facts show how great was the service conferred on the country by Brindley and the Duke of Bridgewater."Baines's History of the Commerce and Town of Liverpool.'

persons were then employed in the earthenware-manufacture alone, besides the large number of others employed in digging coals for their use, and the still larger number occupied in providing materials at distant parts, and in the carrying and distributing trade by land and sea. The annual import of clay and flints into Staffordshire at that time was from fifty to sixty thousand tons; and yet, as Wedgwood truly predicted, the trade was but in its infancy. The outwards and inwards tonnage to the Potteries is now upwards of three hundred thousand tons a-year.

The moral and social influences exercised by the canals upon the Pottery districts were not less remarkable. From a half-savage, thinly-peopled district of some 7000 persons in 1760, partially employed and ill-remunerated, we find them increased, in the course of some twenty-five years, to about treble the population, abundantly employed, prosperous, and comfortable. Civilization is doubtless a plant of very slow growth, and does not necessarily accompany the rapid increase of wealth. On the contrary, higher earnings, without improved morale, may only lead to wild waste and gross indulgence. But the testimony of Wesley to the improved character of the population of the Pottery district in 1781, within a few years after the opening of Brindley's Grand Trunk Canal, is so remarkable, that we cannot do better than quote it here; and the more so, as we have already given the account of his first visit in 1760, on the occasion of his being pelted. "I returned to Burslem," says Wesley; "how is the whole face of the country changed in about twenty years! Since which, inhabitants have continually flowed in from every side. Hence the wilderness is literally become a fruitful field. Houses, villages, towns, have sprung up, and the country is not more improved than the people."

1 The population of the same district in 1861 was found to be upwards of 120,000.

CHAPTER IX.

BRINDLEY'S LAST CANALS.

It is related of Brindley that, on one occasion, when giving evidence before a committee of the House of Commons, in which he urged the superiority of canals to rivers for purposes of inland navigation, the question was asked by a member, "Pray, Mr. Brindley, what then do you think is the use of navigable rivers?" "To make canal navigations, to be sure," was his instant reply. It is easy to understand the gist of the engineer's meaning. For purposes of trade he regarded regularity and certainty of communication as essential conditions of any inland navigation; and he held that neither of these could be relied upon in the case of rivers, which are in winter liable to interruption by floods, and in summer by droughts. In his opinion, a canal, with enough of water always kept banked up, or locked up where the country would not admit of the level being maintained throughout, was absolutely necessary to satisfy the requirements of commerce. Hence he held that one of the great uses of rivers was to furnish a supply of water for canals. It was only another illustration of the nothing like leather" principle; Brindley's head being so full of canals, and his labours so much confined to the making of canals, that he could think of little else.

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In connection with the Grand Trunk-which proved, as Brindley had anticipated, to be the great aorta of the canal system of the midland districts of Englandnumerous lines were projected and afterwards carried out under our engineer's superintendence. One of the most important of these was the Wolverhampton Canal,

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connecting the Trent with the Severn, and authorised in the same year as the Grand Trunk itself. It is now known as the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, passing close to the towns of Wolverhampton and Kidderminster, and falling into the Severn at Stourport. This branch opened up several valuable coal-fields, and placed Wolverhampton and the intermediate districts, now teeming with population and full of iron manufactories, in direct connection with the ports of Liverpool, Hull, and Bristol. Two years later, in 1768, three more canals, laid out by Brindley, were authorised to be constructed the Coventry Canal to Oxford, connecting the Grand Trunk system by Lichfield with London and the navigation of the Thames; the Birmingham Canal, which brought the advantages of inland navigation to the very doors of the central manufacturing town in England; and the Droitwich Canal, to connect that town by a short branch with the river Severn. In the following year a further Act was obtained for a canal, laid out by Brindley, from Oxford to the Coventry Canal at Longford, eighty-two miles in length.

These were highly important works; and though they were not all carried out strictly after Brindley's plans, they nevertheless formed the groundwork of future Acts, and laid the foundations of the midland canal system. Thus, the Coventry Canal was never fully carried out after Brindley's designs; a difference having arisen between the engineer and the Company during the progress of the undertaking, in consequence, as is supposed, of the capital provided being altogether inadequate to execute the works considered by Brindley as indispensable. He probably foresaw that there would be nothing but difficulty, and very likely there might be discredit attached to himself by continuing connected with an undertaking the proprietors of which would not provide him with sufficient means for carrying it forward to completion; and though he finished the first fourteen