and maintaining the Caledonian Canal. 43 



wind supposed to be so frequent and so dangerous, have not 

 been found to exUt in any prejudicial degree. 



A smaller sloop of fortv tons burthen performs similar service in 

 Loch Lochie with respect to the Corpach establishment, and has 

 experienced no difficulty in navigating that lake ; a sloop still 

 remains at each end of the canal, for the occasional carriage of 

 a freight of stone or provender, and the snme crews which na- 

 vigate the sloops on the lakes are then borrowed for that pur- 

 pose. 



The circumstances attending the navigation of the Corpach 

 sloop in Loch Eil, and the Linnhe loch, are worthy of notice, 

 > because those lochs differ in nothing from Loch Ness and Loch 

 Lochie except in containing salt-water instead of fresh. In- 

 spection of anv map of Scotland will show that the Linnhe loch 

 is in fact a continuation of the great valley which extends from 

 Inverness to the Western Sea. 



The Corpach sloop was built in the year 1804, and for ten 

 years navigated these s;dt-water lakes without intermission, bring- 

 ing free-stone from Cumbraes in tlie Firth of Clyde, and rubble- 

 stone from Fassefern ; lime from Lismore, and provender from 

 Appin. In all this variety of service and length of time, neither 

 the sloop nor any one of her crew have sustained the least 

 injury. Indeed tlie facility of navigating the Linnhe loch is 

 fully established by this simple fact; — that the freight and 

 insurance of cargoes to Fort William from Glasgow or Ireland 

 costs no more than to Oijan or Tobermory, which are south of 

 this Linnhe loch ; into wliicii vessels of three or four hundred 

 tons burthen frequentlv run for protection, and obtain it there 

 with such certainty, that not one has been lost since the canal 

 works commenced in the year 1803. Large vessels of the 

 above burthen are now built in Loch Eil, an active and intelligent 

 6hi|)wright having verv successfully formed an establishment close 

 to the sea entrance of the Caledonian c^xnal at Corpach. 



At the other end of the canal, no difficulty of navigation was 

 anticipated by those who apprehended danger and detention in 

 the lakes; and in fact the head of the Murray-frith (more pro- 

 perly called Loch Beauley) must be deemed a well protected 

 harbour from Fort George to Clachnacharry. 



From this statement we may venture to conclude that all former 

 objections to navigation of the Caledonian canal have now been 

 removed by experience ; and that the advantage derivable from 

 avoiding the dangerous passage northward by Cape Wrath and 

 the Orkneys, will suffer no subtraction in the short and expe- 

 ditious passage which will be open to vessels of all sizes when 

 the Caledonian canal is fully opened and in use. 



'I'lie absence of alternate tides, and indeed of any perceptible 



current 



