*[2] A correspondent informs us of a still more foolhardy exploit performed on the occasion. He says, "Having been present, as a boy from Bangor grammar school, on the 26th of April, when the first chain was carried across, an incident occurred which made no small impression on my mind at the time. After the chain had reached its position, a cobbler of the neighbourhood crawled to the centre of the curve, and there finished a pair of shoes; when, having completed his task, he returned in safety to the Caernarvon side! I need not say that we schoolboys appreciated his feat of foolhardiness far more than Telford's master work." CHAPTER XIII. DOCKS, DRAINAGE, AND BRIDGES. It will have been observed, from the preceding narrative, how much had already been accomplished by skill and industry towards opening up the material resources of the kingdom. The stages of improvement which we have recorded indeed exhibit a measure of the vital energy which has from time to time existed in the nation. In the earlier periods of engineering history, the war of man was with nature. The sea was held back by embankments. The Thames, instead of being allowed to overspread the wide marshes on either bank, was confined within limited bounds, by which the navigable depth of its channel was increased, at the same time that a wide extent of land was rendered available for agriculture. In those early days, the great object was to render the land more habitable, comfortable, and productive. Marshes were reclaimed, and wastes subdued. But so long as the country remained comparatively closed against communication, and intercourse was restricted by the want of bridges and roads, improvement was extremely slow. For, while roads are the consequence of civilisation, they are also among its most influential causes. We have seen even the blind Metcalf acting as an effective instrument of progress in the northern counties by the formation of long lines of road. Brindley and the Duke of Bridgewater carried on the work in the same districts, and conferred upon the north and north-west of England the blessings of cheap and effective water communication. Smeaton followed and carried out similar undertakings in still remoter places, joining the east and west coasts of Scotland by the Forth and Clyde Canal, and building bridges in the far north. Rennie made harbours, built bridges, and hewed out docks for shipping, the increase in which had kept pace with the growth of our home and foreign trade. He was followed by Telford, whose long and busy life, as we have seen, was occupied in building bridges and making roads in all directions, in districts of the country formerly inaccessible, and therefore comparatively barbarous. At length the wildest districts of the Highlands and the most rugged mountain valleys of North Wales were rendered as easy of access as the comparatively level counties in the immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis.