On Metallic Miner ali. 357 



shores are unfavourable to the erection of such works. — 

 Bearing in view tliis latter circumstance, the difficulties to 

 be overcome will be better understood by introducing here 

 the following description, for which I am principally 

 indebted to Mr. Manahan, the superintendant and one of 

 the proprietors of the Marmora works. At its mouth the 

 Trent is about seven hundred feet wide ; one mile upwards 

 it ceases to be navigable even for boats, owing to rapids 

 and shallows, which continue for eight miles. Mr. M. 

 thinks that a dam constructed at the foot of these rapids 

 where the banks will allow of its being twelve feet above 

 the river would throw two or three feet of water upon the 

 highest shallows and consequently absorb the rapids ; that 

 is, he supposes, that the river has only a fall of nine feet in 

 these eight miles.* From the head of these rapids the 

 river is navigable for seven miles, five of which hold the 

 same course as before, that is from the north. Here the 

 river bends suddenly to the westward, which direction it 

 maintains for perhaps eighteen miles, after which it again 

 turns to the north and continues witli that bearing until it 

 reaches the confluence of its waters with the Crow or 

 Marmora river, u further distance of about nine miles. — 

 From the angle of the first bend, I believe it has been 

 proposed to carry a canal nearly in a right line to the 

 works, di^tant about sixteen ndles. Beyond the seven 

 miles which have been <lescribed as navigable, a small 

 rapid occurs commonly called Chisholm's Fall. Here much 

 of the water is diverted by a bay, the darning up of « hicli, it 

 is thought, will tlirou' sufficient water on these rapids to 

 render them navigable for boats. l<'or sixteen miles further 



• TtiU fill of nine ftct ii ni«iimv<l incrily on i Htiinulion, it mny lie more. 



