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C H A P. III.

OF THE FORMATION OF CANALS, AND THE MODE OF EXTENDING
THEM INTO EVERY DISTRICT.


	Having in some degree exhibited the importance of canals, their next consideration is to point out a mode of extending their advantages. In this it must be evident, that they can only be advantageously constructed through such districts, as produce a trade equal to an interest for the moneys advanced in their formation; and on this point the difficulty of extending canal communications seems to depend: public roads, bridges, harbors, docks, and other works, admit a variation, and may be constructed great and magnificent, or contracted and cheap,  in proportion to trade, agriculture, or population of the country from which they are to accommodate; but according tit he present system of constructing canals, there is a certain point to which they seem to descend, and below which they cannot be further contracted. The sum required for their construction therefore must be equal to forming them of those dimensions; and the trade expected must be sufficient to pay the interest of the sum, or the country remain hopeless of the conveniences of water carriage; unless a canal be executed in the frenzy of speculation, which indeed is sometimes the case; and rather injures than promotes such works; for subscribers being disappointed of the interest with which they had flattered themselves, are deterred from entering into similar undertakings, though of more rational adventure. The ill success also spreads like a contagion, and sickens the foul of enterprise in others; yet the failure is perhaps not for want of materials to be conveyed by the canal, but in consequence of the expense of getting at such materials.

	Had the ordinary engines of conveyance admitted of no diminution below broad-wheel wagons, those wagons would, in every respect, increase the expense of roads, and the carriage of various materials, and the country could not possibly be so commodiously supplied as by carts, or even cars. Or had that incomparable apparatus, the steam engine, been confined to a two-hundred horse power, the innumerable advantages arising from proportioning its powers down to any degree, which fits it to every situation, could never have been experienced, and the engine itself would be of very little use. 

	A similar power of proportioning a canal to the particular demand of carriage upon it, in like manner, would be attended with benefits which at present are not even thought of; but canals are the only things, which I can at present recoiled, which seem to be fixed to a certain point; In this respect, consequently, they are limited in their extension, imperfect in their principle, and incapable of effetually dreading the blessings of water communications by their present mode of construction; to prove this assertion it is only necessary, for a moment, to consider the operation of a lock.

	On viewing the operation of locks, it appears that if they were constructed for small boats, suppose boats of four tons, the delay in passing would be so great that an important trade could not transacted as it requires almost as much time to pass a small boat as a larger boat; for instance, on a man arriving with six four-ton boats (equal to what is usually conveyed in a boat of twenty-five tons) at a lock constructed for small boats, he would be obliged to separate them, and pass them singly; which would be an operation of three minutes at least to each boat, together with the time necessary for uniting them when passed through, by four minutes, amounting in all to twenty-four minutes, a repetition of this operation, to mount only one hundred feet by twelve locks, would be a delay of four hours forty-eight minutes : this would not only be tedious, but create confusion wherever there were a number of boats passing, even if passing the fame way. How this would be increased by those moving the contrary very, may easily be conceived. Yet the twenty-five ton boat would move through the first lock in five minutes, at the utmost, and passing through the same eleven locks with the same expedition, would rise to the summit level in one hour: hence the twenty-five ton boat will have an advantage in time of three hours forty-eight minutes. This calculation, I hope, will sufficiently prove the impropriety of construction locks for small boats , hence small and cheap canals cannot be formed on the lock principle; locks demand large boats, that an important trade may be per formed; and large boats are the cause of increasing the expense of all the other parts of the canal ; in tunnels, bridges, aqueducts, land, reservoirs, digging, &c. &c. which evidently exclude every district which cannot support those heavy expenses, and preclude every hope of giving to agriculture and commerce the full force of so powerful an agent as water conveyance. 

	But as the true criterion for judging of all improvements, where the object is to increase the produce of labor, it is the cheapness with which the work may be performed; that mode which will convey the most goods for the least money will consequently be the best, whether by roads, railways, large or small canals, or any other mode. It is therefore necessary impartially and deliberately to investigate this subject.

	First, in proportion as a canal is large the expense on all its parts will increase: tunnels, locks, reservoirs, aqueducts, bridges, land, and digging, are all usually allowed to be one third more expensive in a canal for forty ton boats, than in those constructed for boats of twenty-five tons; twenty-five ton boats, also, require a canal of greater dimensions than boats of four tons; in a word, it is evident that the expense of a canal will decrease, in proportion as the boats are reduced; the object therefore is to find the proper medium.
 
	The boat should be such a size as not to exclude any but unusual articles; for this purpose I conceive a boat of four tons sufficiently large; being twenty feet long, four wide and two feet ten inches deep; such a boat, being larger than the chest of a wagon, will contain almost everything but long timber, one horse conveying ten boats.

	Such boats will contain lime, lime-stone, coals, lead, iron ore, grain, flour, iron ware, pottery, and all bodies ponderous and compact, as well as boats of any size whatever; they will contain hogsheads, boxes, and bale goods, not exceeding four feet in width, which are seldom of greater dimensions, each boat will receive fifteen sacks of hops, cotton, or wool; and although the fifteen sacks will not weigh four tons, yet the same circumstance is attendant on all other boats, it being impossible give the weight of tonnage 
such materials : yet a horse may take the greater number of boats, in order to make up a weight equal to his strength. 

	Considering  the articles enumerated, and deliberating on the size, and weight, of other commodities, I conceive there arc few things excluded, and the question is, Whether a company should expend one hundred thousand pounds instead of fifty thousand? Thereby sinking two thousand five hundred pounds per annum, in order to accommodate the few things which boats of these dimensions can not contain, when, in all probability, the articles accommodated would not in tonnage produced 100l. per annum. 

	Thus seeing that most things may be conveyed in small boats, and small boats diminish the expense of canals , the next thing to be considered is how to pass them to, and from, the different levels, or ponds, of which the canals consist. To perform this, see the annexed Plates of Machines. But first give me leave to premise the objects in view : 

	The first object is, to construct such cheap navigations as may extend in districts which produce but a small trade: to perform this, I find it indispensable to reduce the boats to small dimensions.

	The second object is, as the trade may increase, a and become of consequence, it is prudent to provide against such an event, as it will then be necessary to perform an important trade on  as small and cheap canal. For this purpose; if we reflect that the boats may be multiplied as the trade increases, and that the canal may be full of such boats from one extremity to another, consequently the canal, and boats, are adequate to any quantity of trade which the most sanguine imagination can conceive.

	But,  the principal consideration is, how to prevent stagnation at the machinery; hence it becomes necessary to construct, the apparatus in such a manner that the boats may pass with the greatest possible expedition;  and  this quick transfer is the more necessary, in consequence of dividing the trade into small portions of four tons, each of which must pass separate.  Success in these objects will consequently produce system; for, as the canal, though small, and suited to a small trade, is also adequate to a trade of the first importance, it will be impolitic to form any other than cheap and small navigations; hence the boats of one may navigate the other, wherever canals extend.
 
	A third object is, by forming them cheap, and suited to districts with a small trade, it will be the greatest possible inducement to construct them. The subscriber feeling himself guarded against any material loss, with every advantage which larger work could give; these circumstances may justly be expected to extend them through the remote parts of the country, open its numerous resources and spread the produce in every direction. Whether I have succeeded in these points, the candid reader will determine.

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