Mr. Vignoles, in his address to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1870, remarked that, when the success of canals in the Low Countries attracted the attention of Europe, a sort of mania arose in France for inland navigation. Most of these were rendered abortive, and became abandoned, “from uncertainty in the supply of water on account of irregular rainfall, and from the pre-existing monopolies of the millers, who appear at all times and places to have been, as they still are, the natural enemies and thorns in the sides of the hydraulic engineer.” Navigation on the upper branches of rivers rapidly ceased, but concessions for canals in France were then given, the Canal de Briare being the earliest, and next the Languedoc Canal, though neither was finished until about forty years after their first imperfect commencement. So early as the twelfth century, large canals had been cut in Flanders, though the great canal from Brussels to the Scheldt was not completed until 1560. This, however, was about a century before Louis XIV. had finished the earliest canal in France. Probably the first canal constructed in England was the Exeter Canal, a comparatively short waterway, completed in 1572. But the regulation and canalisation of rivers had been attempted long before that time. The improvement of the navigation of the Thames was undertaken in 1423; of the Lea, in 1425; of the Ouse (Yorkshire), in 1462; of the Severn in 1503; of the Stour (Essex), 1504; of the Humber, in 1531; and of the Welland, in 1571. During the seventeenth century, again, many similar works were undertaken. The Colne, the Itchin, the Wye, the Avon, the Medway, the Wey, the Bure, the Foss Dyke, the Witham, the Fal and Vale, the Aire and Calder, and the Trent were all more or less canalised during the period between 1623 and 1699. In the next century, projects for river improvement and canal navigation proceeded apace. In 1700, the rivers Avon and Frome were regulated. In the following twenty years improvements were carried out on the Dee, the Lark, the Derwent, the Frant, the Stour, the Nene, the Kennett, the Wear, the Weaver, the Mersey and the Irwell. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal was commenced in 1720, the Stroudwater Canal in 1730, and the Bridgwater Canal in 1737.