[54] At these falls 790,000 cubic feet of water drops from a height of 75 feet every minute, giving some 112,000 horse-power, which is utilised in manufactures of different kinds. CHAPTER IV. THE WATERWAYS OF SCOTLAND. “Former things Are set aside, like abdicated kings.” —_Ovid._ Scotland has a number of rivers of the first importance, especially the Clyde, the Tay, the Dee, and the Tweed. It has a large number of smaller streams, most of them, however, having too tortuous a course, too impetuous a flow, or too shallow a bed, to be used to any extent for purposes of navigation. This remark does not, of course, apply to the numerous lakes or lochs of Scotland, but these are, for the most part, either situated in inaccessible regions, or in localities where there is not trade enough to provide any considerable amount of traffic. The Clyde is pre-eminently distinguished for the extent of its traffic, and for the improvements that have made it what it is. Camden does not say much as to the condition of the Clyde in his time, and he is almost equally reticent about Glasgow. “The river Glotta or Clwyd,” he says, “runneth from Hamilton, by Bothwell ... and so straight forward, with a readie stream, through Glasgow, in ancient times past a Bishop’s seat ... now the most famous town of merchandise in this tract.” In Camden’s time the other qualifications of Glasgow appear to have been that it had “a pleasant site, and apple trees, and other like fruit trees, much commended, having also a very fine bridge supported with eight arches.” It is upwards of 300 years since the Magistrates and Town Council of Glasgow made the first attempts to improve the Clyde, then a shallow, brawling stream, which could easily be crossed on foot even opposite Glasgow, and was only suitable for the navigation of herring boats, and similarly small craft. In 1768 an engineer, named Golborne, contracted the river by the construction of rubble jetties, and the removal of sand and gravel shoal by dredging, &c. From 1781 till 1836, the works carried on for the further improvement of the river under the direction, consecutively, of Golborne, Rennie, and Telford, consisted chiefly in the shortening of some, and the lengthening of other of Golborne’s jetties, the construction of additional jetties, the connecting of the outer ends of these jetties by half-tide training walls on both sides of the river, so as to confine the water and increase the ebb scour, and the removal of hard shoals by dredging. It was not till 1836 that the river from Glasgow to Port Glasgow was treated as a whole, and a true appreciation shown of its future by the Clyde Trustees’ then Engineer Logan, in the laying down of river lines, which, with some slight modifications and expansions, have up till now formed the limits of the river’s improvements.