A valley remarkable for its uniformity, straightness, and depth, and extending from sea to sea, between two parallel ranges of steep mountains, divides the Highlands of Scotland into two nearly equal parts. The general direction of this chasm is from north-east to south-west, making an angle of about 35 degrees with the meridian; and, besides being entered at each extremity by an arm of the sea, viz., by the Moray Firth on the north, and Loch Linnhe on the south, the rest of its bottom is for the most part occupied by a series of rivers and lakes. The remarkably elongated form and contiguity of these lakes had long ago suggested the facility of forming an inland communication between the Atlantic Ocean and the German Sea. In order to accomplish this important object, it seemed sufficient to connect these lakes and the firths by several short canals amounting together to 23 miles, and thereby obtain a navigable line to an extent of more than 100 miles; and this was farther recommended by the summit-level only rising 94½ feet above the sea. So far back as the year 1773, this line had been surveyed by James Watt, who reported favourably of it, and proposed that the lakes should be connected by a canal of a very moderate size. Nothing further, however, was done till early in the present century, when the subject was taken up by Government, and new surveys were made by Messrs. Jessop and Telford, who recommended a canal of such dimensions as should admit frigates of thirty-two guns, and the greater part of merchant ships, particularly that class which trade between the Baltic and the ports of Ireland and the west coast of Britain; thus avoiding, it was hoped, a tedious, and often dangerous navigation by the Orkneys. The dimensions proposed by Telford, and mainly adhered to, were a width of 50 feet at bottom, 120 feet at top, and 20 feet deep; the locks from 170 to 180 feet long, and 40 wide, with a depth of 20 feet of water besides the lift, or rise. The canal has, however, only been excavated to the depth of 15 feet in the summit-level, though the width has been increased to 122 feet at the top, with such a break in the slope that there is on each side a horizontal shelf 6 feet broad at the depth of 2 feet under the surface of the water. The design in this break in the slope of the sides is to keep large vessels from approaching too close to the edge of the canal, and destroying the upper part of the banks, either by contact or by the eddy produced between the vessel and the sides of the canal. On the north, the Caledonian Canal commences with a sea lock at Clach-na-Carry, in a sheltered bay of Loch Beauly, which is the more inland part of the Moray Firth. The sea-lock here is about two miles north-west of Inverness, and three-quarters of a mile west of the Ferry of Kessock, which is near the mouth of the river Ness. In order to have sufficient depth of water at ordinary neap-tides, it was necessary,