At the end of 1886, there were thirty-one chief canals in operation in France having a total length of 3267 kilometres, and 1446 kilometres of smaller canals, making a total of 4713 kilometres. The canals varied in their volume of annual traffic from over 3½ millions of tons each on the Deûle (Haute) canal, 63 kilometres in length, and on the St. Quentin canal, 93 kilometres in length, to 243,700 tons on the _Latéral à la Garonne_, 204 kilometres in length. The total traffic carried on the canals from year to year has been remarkably constant.[65] The canals have, moreover, carried a considerably larger quantity of traffic than the rivers of France, notwithstanding that the latter have a total length of 7825 kilometres, or 66 per cent. more, and that one or two of them, especially the Aisne and the Oise have been specially canalised.[66] The waterways of France are classified by basins, and according to the statistics published for 1886, the number of waterways in each basin with the number of vessels of all kinds making use of them, and the number of tons transported were as under:— FRENCH RIVERS AND STREAMS ONLY (CANALS NOT INCLUDED). ───────────────┬────────┬──────────────┬───────────┬─────────── │ │ │ Number of │ │ Number │ Total Length │ Vessels │ Tons of Basin of the │ of │ in │ employed │ Traffic │ Lines. │ Kilometres. │ in 1886. │ carried. ───────────────┼────────┼──────────────┼───────────┼─────────── Aa │ 1 │ 29 │ 12,778 │ 1,308,564 Adour │ 9 │ 257 │ 19,903 │ 423,666 Charcute │ 8 │ 301 │ 20,169 │ 239,069 Escaut │ 8 │ 219 │ 42,242 │ 8,184,233 Garonne │ 25 │ 1752 │ 30,952 │ 1,096,482 Loire │ 22 │ 1660 │ 17,669 │ 1,084,542 Moselle │ 6 │ 231 │ 1,601 │ 200,980 Rance │ 1 │ 16 │ 1,832 │ 66,498 Rhone │ 22 │ 1731 │ 25,799 │ 2,358,675 Sambre │ 1 │ 54 │ 2,589 │ 580,761 Seine │ 18 │ 1191 │ 102,117 │18,843,313 Vilaine │ 4 │ 151 │ 4,450 │ 216,601 Vire and Taute │ 3 │ 113 │ 6,494 │ 111,207 ───────────────┴────────┴──────────────┴───────────┴─────────── We may now appropriately follow up the more general information already afforded by some details as to the history and topography of the chief canals and river works in France. SOME FRENCH CANALS.