subdivisions as were necessary, he filled the cylinders with a specimen of each, by twisting them round so as to cut the fibres of the bog. The samples thus taken were carefully cut off at the level of the cylindric guage, and their weight having been ascertained, they were left to dry during the space of several months; and when in a firm state and consequently greatly contracted, were again weighed, the result being that the originally wettest bog was found to have lost 10-11ths of its weight, and the firmest 2-3rds, the rest in due progression between. It therefore became a simple process to ascertain pretty nearly the extent of subsidence in any bog to be passed through, and of course to lay out the line of the canal with such levels, that after subsidence, its surface should be at the required depth below the surface of the bog. Amongst Mr. Chapman's other extensive employments in Ireland, he caused, at the instance of the Irish Government, a survey to be made of the harbour of Dublin to beyond the Bar at Howth; and on this occasion projected a pier from the Clontarf shore to a due distance from the lighthouse, and then to the westward to a proper distance from the north wall, so as to confine all the tidal water covering that vast space, and to cause it to pass down the channel of Pool Beg, in place of being permitted to flow inwards and outwards over the North Bull. In the year 1794 Mr. Chapman returned from Ireland, and fixed his general residence at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. About this time the great project of a canal communication between the German Ocean and the Irish Sea, was engaging general attention in the North of England, and Mr. Chapman was fixed upon to survey the line of country for this proposed canal between Newcastle and the Solway Firth. His reports on this subject, which were made during the years 1795 and 1796, are still extant; and although the work to which they relate was never executed, the documents connected with it are of a very interesting nature. In 1808 this project, which had lain dormant for many years, was again revived, and Mr. Telford was employed to survey and report upon the best line of canal between Carlisle and a suitable port on the Solway Firth. Although Mr. Telford's plan was highly approved of, the time had not yet arrived for the carrying out of even this small portion of the original great scheme; and it was not until the year 1818, when Mr. Chapman drew up a plan and report upon this line from Carlisle to Bowness, that a Bill was brought into Parliament, for which an act was obtained early in 1819. The canal which has been in successful operation for many years, is eleven-and-a-half miles in length, and cost about 120,000_l._ It commences on the south-eastern side of Carlisle, and falls into the sea, through a height of seventy feet, by means of nine locks.