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&c. 2d. per ton, per mile, if they pass a lock; but all these, except lime-stone, are to pass the levels at d. per ton, per mile. Passage boats are established between Bolton and Manchester; but when the water has been low, passengers have been required to walk past the locks, and take to another boat on the other side, in order to avoid the waste of water.

Rochdale Canal. By Acts of Parliament passed in the thirtyfourth, fortieth, and forty-fourth of George the Third, the proprietors of this concern were authorised to open a navigation from the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal at Manchester, to the Calder Navigation at Sowerby Bridge, near Halifax. The course and rise of this Canal are, from its commencement to the Manchester and Ashton Canal, one mile and a half, is a rise of seventy-five feet and a half: thence to Hollingwood branch four miles and a half, with a rise of eighty-one feet: thence to Failsworth brook, two miles and three-quarters, is level: thence to the Rochdale branch, four miles and a quarter, with a rise of 120 feet: thence to Clay-hill, two miles and a quarter, rising sixty-two feet: thence to the Summit-pound, and through the deep cutting to Brier's Mill, five miles and a half, is level. At Halling's Mill is a tunnel seventy yards in length, seventeen feet high, and twenty-one wide, with a towing-path through it. Between Littleborough and Todmerden is a piece of stupendous deep cutting through hard rock, of fifty feet. A very large reservoir is made on the west side of the summit; and a steam-engine, of a hundred horse power, is used to pump the water up to the summit-pound. On a bog at Blackstone-edge, are two other large reservoirs, one of which is fourteen yards deep. Gauges for regulating the streams of the Roch, Irwell, and Irk rivers, so that only their flood waters are taken for the supply of this Canal, were contrived and erected by the ingenious Mr. John Rennie, the engineer. Steam-engines, within twenty yards of the Canal, are allowed to condense by its The east end of the line, from Sowerby Bridge to Rochdale, was completed on the 28th of December, 1798; and on the 18th of September, 1802, it was continued to Lome-wharf. The whole line was completed to Manchester, 21st December, 1804.

water.

This company are to pay a compensation to the Bridgewater's trust, for the use of warehouses at Castle Field; and to the Calder and Hebble Company for warehouses at Sowerby Bridge. By the first Act, the proprietors were authorised to raise 391,000l. in shares of 1001. each; and by the last Act, they were allowed to raise a large additional sum. [The rates of tonnage, wharfage, &c. and the exemptions in the first Act, will be found in “Phillips's History of Inland Navigation," 4to. pages 157, 159, 161, &c.] From its head level, this Canal falls 275 feet on the Halifax side, and 438 feet 7 inches on the Manchester side. At the commencement of this scheme, it encountered much opposition, and the proprietors, in obtaining their Acts, were obliged to bind themselves not to use any of the waters of the Irk, Calder, and Roach rivers, so as to affect their Mills, &c. They were therefore obliged to make several large reservoirs on the hills to supply the waste of lockage and leakage.

At Ulverston is a short cut, or Canal, of about one mile and a half, to communicate from that town to the Irish Sea. An Act of Parliament was obtained for this, in the thirty-third of George the Third. A lock is made of 112 feet long, capable of receiving a large vessel. This Canal is 65 feet at top, and 30 feet at bottom; with 15 feet depth of water, and a proper towing path.

Such are the principal, and, I believe, only Canals and Navigable Rivers of this very populous and flourishing county; and the coustruction of these tends strongly to characterise the commercial and speculating spirit of its active inhabitants. The many advantages of water, over land-carriage, are now very generally known to, and appreciated by, the people of this country: and its effects must be more sensibly felt by the inhabitants of populous manufacturing towns. To that of Manchester, in particular, the Canal has proved eminently beneficial; and the thriving ports of Liverpool and Lancaster, with the central towns of the county, have all derived from this source many important advantages. Whilst the natural produce of the county is readily and cheaply conveyed to various marts, and the coals sent to the devouring factories; the perfected fabrications of the latter are thereby distributed all over the king

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dom, and to the sea ports for foreign exportation. The vast expense of Canal-making has long continued an obstacle, and this can only be surmounted, and its immense charges, with accumulating interest, repaid, by the constant traffic produced by flourishing manufactories.

At the beginning of the last century it was deemed a most arduous task to make a high road for carriages over the hills and moors which are found between Yorkshire and Lancashire; but now this country is pierced, and rendered passable for merchandise, &c. by three Navigable Canals. The rocky mountains are also perforated, and their steepness subdued, by the genius and persevering labour of man, in cutting subterraneous tunnels through their acclivous and craggy sides.

On reviewing the present and past state of Canals in this kingdom generally, and in Lancashire particularly, and comparing them with the present and former state of the manufactures and commerce of this county only, the human mind is expanded with admiration and astonishment. It may, perhaps, be safely stated that there is no one shire in England where the exertions of human ingenuity and persevering labour have produced such extensive and beneficial effects, as in Lancashire: for in this county, the various machinery connected with manufactures, also with the engines and mines, have been eminently promoted, if not originally invented; and here the system of Commercial Docks was first successfully and advantageously carried into effect, although the latter has since been surpassed in the immense and astonishing Docks belonging to the port of London. *

MOSSES.-Lancashire abounds with those Bogs, or Morasses, which bear the provincial name of Mosses. The principal of these are called from the chief places in their vicinity, Chat; Pilling; Trafford; Risley; Ashton; Road; Bickerstaff; Rainford; Marton;

* For an interesting history of Canals, with much useful information on the subject, see Rees's " Cyclopædia," Vol. VI. The very able article for which was written by Mr. Jolin Farey. See also Phillips's " History of Inland Natigation," the last Quarto Edition.

Marton; St. Michael's ; and Catforth. The component parts of these chiefly consist of a spongy soil, containing roots of decayed vegetables, intermixed with a sort of rotten mould. The origin and peculiarity of Mosses have occasioned much difference of opinion with the writers on Agriculture and Natural History; but when their precise situations are accurately defined, it seems extremely easy to account for the latter, and thereby discover some clew for the former. The laws of nature are immutable; and when certain natural causes are known to produce certain effects, and these are invariable, it does not appear difficult to ascertain the motive, or primary source. Thus Mosses, or bogs, are always found near spring heads, and in such hollows as prevent a regular and constant discharge of the oozing waters. These must consequently remain stagnant, and from the perpetual generation and decomposition of vegetable matter, must progressively acquire substance. Among the most common vegetables in these situations, are the Erica Vulgaris, the Ornithogalum luteum, and the different species of Eriphorum, or cotton-grass; also bilberry, cranberry, crowberry, andromeda polifolia; Lancashire asphodel, sun-dew, and the fragrant myrica-gale, or bog-myrtle. As these plants decay, and deposit their substances, a considerable addition is annually made to the moss, in cutting a section of which, in some places, the progressive stratification or lamina may be distinctly discovered. These plants, and particularly the mosses, seem to derive their nutriment and fructification from their own ruins, and grow more luxuriant as the substance increases: at length the whole takes the appearance and consistency of a large fungus; and continuing to increase, it at length grows greatly above the level of the adjacent lands, till the weight of the surface, becoming too great to be supported by the spongy substance below, it overflows its original boundary, and covers the adjoining grounds. - A remarkable instance of this occurrence is related of Solway-Moss;* and, according to some of our ancient chroniclers,

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This happened in 1771, and originated from some severe rains, which produced very considerable inundations in the rivers. About 800 acres of

land

chroniclers, a great portion of Chat-Moss was carried into the Irwell, and thence into the Mersey, and on to the sea. Leland mentions this event in the following terms: " Chateley More a vi miles yn lenght, sum (way St.) brast up within a mile of Morley Haul, and destroied much grounde, with Mosse thereabout, and destroied much fresch water Fische thereabout, first corrupting with stinking water, Glasebrooke, and so Glasebrooke carried stinking water and Mosse into Mersey Water, and Mersey corrupted carried the roulling Mosse part to the shores of Wales, part to the Isle of Man, and sum into Ireland. In the very toppe of Chateley More where the Mosse was hyest and brake, is now a fair plaine valley, as was in tymes paste, and a Rille runnith in hit, and peaces of small Trees be founde in the Botom." Itin. Vol. 7, p. 46.

Without entering into particulars relating to all the Morasses, or Mosses of this county, I shall give a short account of two or three of those, which have been brought into a state of improvement. On the south side of the river Irwell, is a tract of moss land called Trafford-Moss, which contains about 500 acres, and adjoins the park of Jolm Trafford, Esq. at the distance of about three miles from Manchester. The Canal of the Duke of Bridgewater, from that town to Worsley, runs through this Moss, the level of which is upwards of thirty feet above the bed of the river. The facility of drainage afforded by this circumstance, and the abundance of materials found under the bed of the Moss, suggested the idea of the practicability of improving it; and in the year 1793 an act of parliament was obtained, enabling Mr. Trafford to grant both Trafford and Chat Mosses for long terms of years, on a lease for improvement. The improvement of TraffordMoss was undertaken by Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Roscoe, of Liverpool; and the whole of this hitherto useless tract of land is

now

land were then overflowed by the moss, and the habitations of twenty-seven families were destroyed.-See Beauties, Vol. III. p. 107, &c. A similar inundation of moss occurred at Monteith, in Scotland. An interesting account of the Strata, probable origin, rise, progress, and present state of the High and Low Mosses of Kincardine may be seen in Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, Vol. XXI. p. 151-181,

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