Connection with the Calder, and thus with the cross-country navigation of which it formed a part, was also obtained by means of the Huddersfield Canal, a waterway twenty miles in length which, starting from Ashton, rises 334 ft., to the Saddleworth manufacturing district (situate in the wildest part of the Yorkshire hills), passes through a tunnel three miles long, and descends 436 ft. on the Huddersfield side in reaching the level of the Calder. The reader will have concluded from these references to other canals that, although the Duke of Bridgewater had {181}found a difficulty in raising the means with which to complete his canal to Runcorn, public confidence in canals must have been reassured, and ample money must have been forthcoming, to allow of these further costly and important schemes being undertaken. This conclusion is abundantly warranted. The position following the construction of the Bridgewater canals was thus described, in 1796, in "A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation," by R. Fulton:-- "So unacquainted were the people with the use of canals, and so prejudiced in favour of the old custom of river navigations, that the undertaking was deemed chimerical, and ruin was predicted as the inevitable result of his Grace's labour.... Yet it was not long finished when the eyes of the people began to open; the Duke could work on his canal when floods, or dry seasons, interrupted the navigation of the Mersey; this gave a certainty and punctuality, in the carriage of merchandize, and ensured a preference to the canal; the emoluments arising to the Duke were too evident to be mistaken; and perseverance having vanquished prejudice, the fire of speculation was lighted, and canals became the subject of general conversation." The farming community, more especially, had looked with suspicion upon this new-fangled idea of sending boats across fields and up and down the hill-sides. The author of "A Cursory View of the Advantages of an Intended Canal from Chesterfield to Gainsborough" (1769) finds, however, a sufficient excuse for them in the conditions of locomotion and transport with which alone they had hitherto been familiar. He says:--