One of the most important applications of canal navigation has been in enabling the navigation of important rivers to be continued, where Nature had interposed a barrier in the form of impassable cataracts or otherwise. Examples of this sort are the Welland Canal between Lake Erie and Ontario, which provides a navigation parallel to the Niagara river, rendered impassable by the Falls of that name; the Des Moines Canal, which overcomes the barrier interposed by the Des Moines Rapids, on the Mississippi; the canal that overcomes, in the same way, the difference of level in the Mississippi caused by the St. Anthony’s Falls[54] near Minneapolis; and the Gotha Canal, which overcomes the difficulties of Trolhätta Falls on the Gotha river in Sweden. These achievements and responsibilities have not been carried so far in Great Britain as in some other countries. The existing canal system of that country is more primitive than that of any other leading European State, and it is very much more imperfectly developed than those of Canada and the United States. The Manchester Canal project, described at a later stage of this work, will do something to wipe away this reproach. FOOTNOTES: [40] ‘Journal of the Society of Arts,’ 1888. [41] ‘Lives of the Engineers.’ [42] An excellent summary of these and other matters connected with the early history of this enterprise is given in a little work published in 1766, entitled “The History of Inland Navigation.” [43] ‘History of Inland Navigations.’ [44] This refers to the South Staffordshire mine, which is hardly worked now. The iron trade of that period was chiefly carried on in Staffordshire, and nothing except a little charcoal iron was made in the Cumberland district, where the annual production, including Furness, is now over a million and a half tons per annum. [45] It was thought a great thing that over five million quarters of corn were exported from Great Britain in the five years ending 1750. [46] ‘The History of Inland Navigations,’ &c., London, 1769. [47] Ibid., p. 58. [48] In the same district over a million tons are now annually sent down the river Weaver. [49] A detailed description of this Navigation is given in Priestley’s ‘Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways of Great Britain,’ p. 385. [50] Appendix to Report, p. 206. [51] Report of Canal Committee of 1882, Appendix No. 9, p. 230. [52] This, however, is not a canal of uniform size, and part of it will only admit vessels 63 ft. by 14 ft. 7 in. [53] This total does not include the Thames and Severn, the Wey, and the Wisbech canals, because each of these has two dimensions, the smaller of which is too limited to admit the passage of large craft, and they are therefore unsuited, without trans-shipment of traffic, for the purpose in view.