accommodation to the town, its trade and prospects would be greatly increased, having regard to the large manufactories by which it is surrounded, the immense population in the immediate neighbourhood, and the nearness of the Wigan coalfield. This work is now in progress, including the division of the river; the estimated cost being about 440,000_l._ THE SEVERN. This famous river is navigable up to Welshpool, a distance of 155 miles by water, from the mouth of the Bath Avon river. The extreme branch of this river may be traced for about 45 miles above Welshpool, to Plinlimmon Hill, and numerous other branches extend for great distances into the country on both sides. The whole of this great length of navigation was, till lately, unimproved by art, the river having no locks, weirs, or other erections throughout its whole length, for surmounting the numerous shallows and irregularities which the current over variable strata had formed in its bed. The first or lowest 42 miles of this river, extending to the city of Gloucester, are very wide for a great part of the way, and have a most rapid tide; but the last 28 miles are so crooked, that ships are said to be often several days in passing it; on which account, a ship canal, calculated for vessels of 300 tons burthen, was in the year 1793 projected and begun between Gloucester and Berkeley, of 18¼ miles in length, for avoiding these 28 miles of the river. From Gloucester to Worcester the distance is 30 miles by the course of the stream, the rise in this length being 10 feet, or at the rate of 4 inches a mile; from Worcester to Stourport the distance by water is 13 miles, and the rise 23 feet, or at the rate of 1 foot 9 inches per mile; from Stourport to Bridgnorth it is 18 miles, and the rise 41¾ feet, or 2 feet 4 inches per mile on the average; and from Bridgnorth to the new town at the junction of the Shropshire canal, called Coalport, the distance is about 7 miles, and the rise about 19 feet, being a rate of about 2 feet 8 inches per mile. William Reynolds, the founder of Coalport, caused an account to be daily registered of the depth of the stream in the bed of the Severn at that place, between the 7th of October, 1789, and the 23rd of December, 1800, of which Mr. Telford has given the particulars, except on twelve occasions when the river had overflown its bounds and covered the usual marks (on Sundays during some part of the time), the intervals of frost in which the river was frozen over, and for three short intervals, when, unfortunately, the experiment was by some accident suspended. During all the months of January, in the above period of eleven years, ending the 6th of October, 1800, the river does not appear to have exceeded the depth of 16 feet, that being the greatest depth at any time recorded; and several times, when no depths are inserted to the great floods, it is stated in the table that the water was above all the marks. Besides these, there were thirty-two smaller floods, or