Some action had certainly been taken in this direction. The Birmingham Canal system of to-day is composed of three canal companies which had amalgamated prior to 1846, supplemented by a fourth which joined them in that year. The Shropshire Union, also, is formed of four canal companies originally independent. But these are only exceptions to the rule, for though the Joint Select Committee of 1872, following up what had already been done at an earlier period, recommended that the utmost facilities should be given for amalgamations between canal companies, few of such amalgamations have, as the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways points out, taken place since the full establishment of railways. Goods sent to-day by canal from Birmingham, for instance, to London, to Liverpool or to Hull will pass over waterways controlled by from six to eight different authorities, according to the route followed. One must, however, recognise the fact that the securing of uniformity of gauge and the establishment of through routes presented far greater difficulties in the case of artificial waterways than in that of railways. The physical geography of England is wholly unfavourable to efficient cross-country water transport, and this fact, in itself, is sufficient to render impracticable any such scheme of canal resuscitation as that which has been put forward by the recent Royal Commission. The physical condition of England in relation to the building of canals is well shown in the article on "Canals" published in "Rees' Cyclopædia" (1819) where it is said, in this connection:-- "Great Britain ... has a range of high land passing nearly its whole length, which divides the springs and rain waters that fall to the opposite coasts: we shall call this range dividing the eastern and western rivers of Britain the _grand ridge_.... No less than 22 of our canals now do or are intended to pass this grand ridge, forming as many navigable connections between the rivers of the east and west seas!... The Dudley canal crosses this grand ridge twice, the two ends {302}being on the eastern side, and the middle part on the western side thereof; the Kennet and Avon crosses the eastern and western branches, into which it divides on the Chalk Hills, west of Marlborough, by which parts of this canal are in the drainage of the west, the south and the east seas! The Coventry Canal, also, by means of its Bedworth branch, crosses the grand ridge twice. The populous and remarkable town of Birmingham is situate on high ground, near to the grand ridge, and has six canals branching off in different directions, either immediately therefrom or at no great distance, and, what is singular, owing to a loop, or sudden bend of the ridge at this place, no less than five of them traverse the grand ridge, either by means of tunnels or deep-cutting."