Vernon-Harcourt is of opinion that "the regulation, improvement and control of rivers constitute one of the most important, and, at the same time, one of the most difficult, branches of civil engineering"; and this difficulty must have been found still greater in the last half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries, when river improvement was engaging so much attention, but when civil engineering was far less advanced than is the case to-day. Whatever, too, the degree of success attained in the efforts made to overcome the results of floods and droughts, of shoals and shallows, of river mouths choked by sand washed in from the estuaries, of streams unduly broad from lack of {159}adequate embankments, and of ever-varying channels, whatever the energy and the outlay in meeting or trying to meet conditions such as these, there still remained the consideration that, even assuming all the difficulties in regulating, improving and controlling could be surmounted, river transport itself was an inadequate alternative to bad roads, (1) because of the length of the land journey that might have to be made before the river was reached; and (2) because even the best of the rivers only served certain parts of the country, and left undeveloped other districts which were unable to derive due benefit from their great natural resources by reason of defective communications. Each of these points calls for some consideration, in order that the position of the traders at the period in question may be clearly understood. In regard to the distance at which manufacturers might be situated from a navigable river, I would point to the position of the pottery trade in North Staffordshire. The pottery industry had been introduced into Burslem in 1690, though it made comparatively little progress until the time of Josiah Wedgwood, who began to manufacture there in 1759. One of the reasons for the slow growth, down to his day, was the trouble and expense the pottery-makers experienced in getting their raw materials and in sending away their manufactured goods. Following on the improvement of the Weaver, under the Act of 1720, there were three rivers of which the pottery-makers in North Staffordshire made more or less use--the Weaver itself, the Trent and the Severn. On the Weaver the nearest available point to the Potteries was Winsford Bridge, a distance of twenty miles by road. On the Trent the principal river-port for the Potteries was Willington, about four miles east of Burton-on-Trent, and over thirty miles by road from the Potteries. To the Severn inland ports the distances by road from the Potteries, via Eccleshall and Newport, were:-- From To Miles. Newcastle (Staff.) Bridgnorth 39 Burslem " 42½ Newcastle (Staff.) Bewdley 54 Burslem " 57½