154 SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



use over the whole kingdom. Dr. John Roebuck, having visited many places in 

 Scotland, to ascertain the practicability of an iron foundry, fixed at last on 

 the situation of the present Carron works. The date of the establishment is 

 1760: the company is chartered, and has an original capital of fifty thousand 

 pounds. This foundry is, without dispute, the most extensive in the world. 

 There are five blast furnaces, producing nearly two hundred tons of iron weekly : 

 of air furnaces and cupolas, there are twenty, capable of melting double the 

 quantity for foundry purposes. Mortars, cannon, and carronades (so named 

 from the foundry) are cast solid, and bored in a perpendicular position. About 

 two thousand people used to be employed on the premises. The consumption 

 of coal, which is obtained from the mines adjoining, is about two hundred tons 

 a-day. The iron is brought from the West by the great canal, and from the 

 coast of Fife by the Forth. The works employ from fifteen to twenty of the 

 company's vessels to London, Liverpool, &c. There is easy access to both seas ; 

 and, from a private canal from within the buildings, the lading is carried in 

 small craft to the Carron wharf. The Forth and Clyde Canal, which had its 

 commencement, joined by the Union Canal, at this point — forms altogether one 

 of the boldest enterprises of modern times.* 



Behind the church of Larbert is the handsome monument of cast-iron erected 

 to the memory of Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller. The Carse of Stirling, 

 like that of Falkirk, is cultivated with the neatness of a garden, and seems as 

 productive ; while new mansions, embosomed in thriving plantations, and adding 

 many pleasing features to the general landscape, afibrd evidence of the daily 

 improvements which are here extending their influence in every direction. 

 Many of the Roman preesidia and titrres — particularly Castle Gary, Rough 

 Castle, and Camelon, are still traceable in this district. In the latter of these, 

 Agricola is supposed to have wintered previous to his sixth campaign, and to 

 have made the Camelon Causeway. Near the Carron, that ancient boundary of 



• The Great Canal, connecting the Clyde with the Forth, appears to have first suggested itself in the 

 reign of Charles II., but was not acted upon till the summer of 1768. In 1700 the navigation was 

 opened from sea to sea, by a great popular solemnity of pouring into the Clyde a hogshead of the water of 

 the Forth. The greatest altitude of this canal is one hundred and fifty-six feet ; the medium breadth at 

 surface fifty- six feet; at bottom, twenty-seven feet; with an uniform depth of eight feet. Vessels of nineteen 

 feet beam, sixty-eight feet keel, and drawing eight feet of water, can navigate its whole length, about 

 tltirty-five miles. It is crossed by thirty-three draw-bridges, passes over ten considerable aqueducts, 

 besides thirty smaller tunnels. The great aqueduct at Kelvin, eighty-three feet high, and crossing a 

 valley upwards of four hundred feet wide, is magnificent. The canal has six reservoirs, covering above 

 four hundred acres. In ISIO the duty upon it, arising chiefly from grain and timber, amounted to forty 

 thousand pounds. (C.-mii/y //"(. //;)/ifn(/;x, p. 718.) This splendid enterprise has since been joined by 

 the Union Canal from Edinburgh, already noticed. 



