It seems to be customary with writers on the subject of canals and waterways to begin with the Egyptians, to detail the achievements of the Chinese, to record the doings of the Greeks, and then to pass on to the Romans, before even beginning their account of what has been done in Great Britain. Here, however, I propose to leave alone all this ancient history, which, to my mind, has no more to do with existing conditions in our own country than the system of inland navigation adopted by Noah, or the character of the canals which are supposed to exist in the planet of Mars. For the purposes of the present work it will suffice if I go no further back than what I would call the "pack-horse period" in the development of transport in England. This was the period immediately preceding the introduction of artificial canals, which had their rise in this country about 1760-70. It preceded, also, the advent of John Loudon McAdam, that great reformer of our roads, whose name has been immortalised in the verb "to macadamise." Born in 1756, it was not until the early days of the nineteenth century that McAdam really started on his beneficent mission, and even then the high-roads of England--and especially of Scotland--were, as a rule, deplorably bad, "being at once loose, rough, and perishable, expensive, tedious and dangerous to travel on, and very costly to repair." Pending those improvements which McAdam brought about, adapting them to the better use of stage-coaches and carriers' waggons, the few roads already existing were practically available--as regards the transport of merchandise--for pack-horses only. Even coal was then carried by pack-horse, the cost working out at about 2s. 6d. per mile for as much as a horse could carry. It was from these conditions that canals saved the country--long, of course, before the locomotive came into vogue. As it happened, too, it was this very question of coal transport that led to their earliest development. There is quite an element of romance in the story. Francis Egerton, third and last Duke of Bridgewater (born 1736), had an unfortunate love affair in London when he reached the age of twenty-three, and, apparently in disgust with the world, he retired to his Lancashire property, where he found solace to his wounded feelings by devoting himself to the development of the Worsley coal mines. As a boy he had been so feeble-minded that the doubt arose whether he would be capable of managing his own affairs. As a young man disappointed in love, he applied himself to business in a manner so eminently practical that he deservedly became famous as a pioneer of improved transport. He saw that if only the cost of carriage could be reduced, a most valuable market for coal from his Worsley mines could be opened up in Manchester.