It is remarkable what a large crop of important discoveries and inventions were made about the time that canals began to be generally used as waterways. Robinson’s project for working steam locomotives on common roads was put forward the year after Brindley commenced the Bridgwater Canal. In the same year the manufacture of thread and gauze was commenced at Paisley, and Jedediah Strutt made his first improvement on the stocking loom. Two years later Arkwright obtained his first patent for the spinning-frame, and Watt made his first experiments on the power of steam with Papin’s digester. It was in 1762 that the production of Wedgwood ware was first begun, and the same year witnessed a notable development of the linen manufacture of Ireland, while in 1763 Hargreaves the weaver produced his spinning-jenny in his house adjoining the print works of the first Sir Robert Peel. These are but a few of the concurrent and collateral movements of the period. Of the measure in which they were aided by internal transport we shall have more to say by and by. An examination of the geography of European countries will disclose the fact that the United Kingdom is almost unique in regard to its possession of a magnificent coast-line, studded with harbours and docks, and approached by a large number of navigable rivers, which afford easy communication with the sea. If we compare our facilities with those of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Italy, or indeed any other European country, we cannot fail to be struck with their enormous superiority. Scarcely any part of the United Kingdom is more than a hundred miles distant from a good harbour. In many European countries there are important towns that are very much further, while some countries, like Switzerland, have no seaboard at all, and others, like Austria, besides having very few ports worthy of the name, are landlocked on more sides than one.