ccxxvi GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



walls at Manchester would be 450 feet. The cost of the improve- 

 ment is placed at about 3,500,000. 



Another great project which is being seriously agitated in France 

 is that of a great maritime canal between the English Channel and 

 the Mediterranean Sea. The latest advices upon this topic assert 

 that the delegates of chambers of commerce have formed them- 

 selves into a commission to promote its execution, and have ex- 

 plained the feasibility and importance of the work to various mem- 

 bers of the national government, who have the scheme under consid- 

 eration. Tlie canal proposed is to be sufficiently large for vessels 

 of 250 or 300 tons ; and the route is by the Seine, the old Burgundy 

 Canal, and the Rhone. It is estimated that such a route would save 

 about 1000 miles of navigation to all heavy articles, to which class 

 of objects it would most probably be confined. The commission, 

 adopting the estimates of reliable engineers, jDlace the probable cost 

 of the work at about sixty-five million francs (about thirteen million 

 dollars) ; of which amount ten million francs would have to be ex- 

 pended on the Lower Seine, five millions on the Upper Seine and the 

 Yonne, ten millions on the Burgundy Canal, and forty millions on 

 the Rhone. The dei^th would be thirteen and a half meters on the 

 Rhone, and two meters elsewhere. The locks would be 133 meters 

 by 12 meters. Transshipment would in any case be necessary only 

 at Lyons. The works can be completed in six years, and, it is urged, 

 will retain in France much trafiic that is likely to ];e diverted from 

 that country on the completion of the St. Gothard Tunnel. A proj- 

 ect of similar import, announced by M. Manier, under the name of the 

 ''' Grand Canal du Midi,'''' provides for a canal the whole distance. It 

 would be divided into five sections : 1st, from Blaye to La Reole, a 

 distance of 80 kilometers, with an average cut of 15 meters and a 

 width of 180 meters ; 2d, from La Reole to Toulouse, 175 kilometers, 

 with an average cut of 78.18 meters and width of 100 meters; 3d, 

 from Toulouse to Carcassonne, 90 kilometers, with mean depth of 

 141.4 meters and width of 80 meters ; 4th, from Carcassonne to Nar- 

 bonne, GO kilometers, with mean depth of 62 meters and width of 

 100 meters ; and, 5th, from Narbonne to the sea, 10 kilometers, with 

 mean depth of 12 meters and width of 180 meters. The cost of this 

 work, however, would be so prodigious as utterly to preclude the 

 possibility of its being seriously undertaken. The Pall Mall Gazette 

 figures the expense at over 1,000,000,000. 



Another important water cut-off that has attracted discussion in 

 the leading European journals is the jiroject of a ship-canal from 

 Bayonne, in the Bay of Biscay, through Toulouse to Ayde, two miles 

 from the Mediterranean. It is urged that this improvement, if con- 

 structed, would make almost a bee-line from Plymouth to Malta, 

 and save the long run down the coasts of Portugal and Spain, which 

 amounts to several hundred miles. The London Times comments 



