Mb. Keddie on the Bursting of Crinan Canal. 269 



entire structure, rolling the materials fifty yards along the level grassy 

 banks, in broken masses such as eight men would fail to move. The 

 force of the current in the canal was spent in little more than half an 

 hour. It was not, however, till midnight that the flood subsided in 

 the lower levels. 



In the month of September, after considerable progress had been 

 made in repairing the effects of the debacle, the line of the canal still 

 continued strewed with the blocks of stone carried down by the torrent. 

 Many of the larger masses had previously been removed by blasting. 

 The following are the measurements of a few of those that remained, 

 to which Dr. Bryce, who is accustomed to such calculations, has added 

 an approximate estimate of their weight : — 1. A block of granite, 

 grooved and water-worn, measuring 5 feet in length, 4 feet in breadth, 

 and 2 feet in depth, weighing probably about 3^ tons. 2. A boulder 

 of porphyritic trap, 8 feet 4 inches in length, 5 feet in breadth, 2J 

 feet in depth, weighing from 8 to 10 tons. 3. Another mass of trap, 

 with smooth surface, measuring 3 yards 6 inches in length, 2 yards 7 

 inches in breadth, and 1 yard in depth; weight from 18 to 22 tons. 

 4. An angular mass of mica-schist, torn out of the rock, and brought 

 down by a divergent stream, measured 8 feet G inches in length, upwards 

 of a yard in breadth, and 4 feet 7 inches in depth ; weight from 8| to 

 10 tons. These may be regarded as of the average bulk of the larger 

 blocks, which lay scattered about in hundreds, several months after 

 a numerous body of workmen had been employed in blasting and 

 removing the original pile ; while masses of smaller, interspersed with 

 not a few of larger dimensions, lay in thousands along the course of the 

 canal, at that time still to a large extent unexcavated. The valley for 

 several miles resembled a region which had been shaken by some great 

 convulsion of nature, instead of exhibiting only the consequences of an 

 engineering accident. Mr. Graham writes — " The attention of the 

 passing tourist is mainly attracted to the effects of the fall of water 

 evinced in its powers of destruction ; but you would have found it more 

 interesting, leaving the canal and its ruins, to have ascended along the 

 course that the water took in its descent, commencing at the debouchure 

 of the short-lived though trace -leaving river, and following up the 

 chasms and rock-encumbered gullies to the sources of the cataract, 

 in the dried basins of the broken reservoirs. It is difficult to believe 

 that all these cuttings, and rocks tossed about like chuckie-stones, mark 

 the work of minutes, instead of years." 



The Crinan Canal originally cost £127,360. In 1805 the canal 

 burst its banks, and was repaired at an expenditure of £25,000. In 



