INLAND CONVEYANCE. 



employed should be tough as well as hard. Flint 

 is hard enough, but it is brittle, and easily crushed 

 to powder. The object is to get it to bind into a 

 firm mass, and not to roll about, after it has been 

 laid down for some time. 



With respect to the maintenance of roads, the 

 trustees appointed by local acts of parliament to 

 superintend highways, now generally employ con- 

 tractors to keep the roads in repair at a specified 

 price per mile. The cost of maintenance, interest 

 on capital, &c. are usually defrayed from a tax 

 levied at the toll-bars or turnpikes.* To say 

 nothing of the annoyance of the system, this mode 

 of raising the necessary funds is the most wasteful 

 that could be contrived ; on an average, 44 per 

 cent, is absorbed in collection alone. In 1845, 

 Mr Pagan, a Scottish country solicitor, proposed 

 a plan for the entire abolition of toll-bars, the con- 

 solidation of trusts, and the levying of an annual 

 rate on horses, or an assessment on lands and 

 heritages. He demonstrated, taking the county 

 of Fife as an example, that on his plan the roads 

 could be maintained at little more than one-half 

 their present cost. Years elapsed before any 

 steps were taken. Ireland led the way in toll- 

 reform ; and by 1857 the whole system had dis- 

 appeared in that part of the kingdom. From 

 time to time various Scottish counties obtained 

 acts for themselves for abolishing toll-gates, and 

 many English Local Government Boards have 

 adopted a similar course. The Roads and 

 Bridges (Scotland) Act of 1878 provided for the 

 abolition, within a few years, of all remaining tolls 

 in Scotland. 



Lau> of the Road. For general convenience 

 and safety, drivers of vehicles and riders, in travel- 

 ling along a road, are expected to take a particular 

 side ; and this practice is now so well understood, 

 and is in itself so proper, as to have become a part 

 of the common law. The law of the road is, that 

 when drivers meet from different directions, each 

 shall keep his left hand to the wall or footpath. 

 Secondly, when one driver overtakes another, and 

 wishes to pass him, he must keep his left hand to 

 the vehicle which he passes. In the case of either 

 meeting or passing, each party is entitled to the 

 half of the road. The same rules apply to riders. 

 If these regulations be neglected, and an accident 

 occur, the law is always in favour of the party who 

 kept his own proper side, and no excuse can 

 shelter the aggressor. The trustees of the road 

 are liable in an action of damages for any injury 

 that may be sustained through the carelessness of 

 themselves or servants in leaving the road grossly 

 out of repair. 



According to a well-known rule, foot-pas- 

 sengers on pavements or side-paths adopt a plan 

 just the reverse of this ; that is, they are expected 

 to keep their left hand to those whom they are 

 meeting and passing. This custom prevents con- 

 fusion in the streets of large towns, but is not a 

 matter of law. 



CANALS. 

 A canal is an artificial channel of water, and is 



* Turnpikes were so called from poles or bars, swung on a 

 pivot, having been placed on them, and turned either way 

 when dues were paid. Gates are now substituted for these 

 poles in Great Britain. In Germany, the pole is still used, one 

 end being depressed to raise the other, and so permit a free 

 passage. 



usually constructed for inland navigation. Where 

 rivers can be resorted to for purposes of this kind 

 they are preferable to canals, because little ex- 

 pense may be required to suit them for navigation 

 and they may be easily kept in repair. But few 

 rivers generally speaking, are sufficiently level, 

 straight, or deep, to admit of being profitably 

 navigated by barges, and therefore artificial 

 channels require to be cut. Canals are extremely 

 suitable in level countries possessing rivers or 

 brooks which can afford a due supply of water. 

 In China, from a very early age, certain large 

 rivers have formed natural canals longitudinally 

 through the country from west to east, while 

 artificial canals have been made to proceed in a 

 cross direction from north to south, thus effecting 

 a universal water-communication throughout the 

 empire. Canals existed in ancient Egypt in con- 

 nection with the Nile, on a similar plan to what 

 now prevails in China. Notwithstanding that 

 canals were known to have existed from a remote 

 antiquity in the East, it was long before they were 

 introduced into Western Europe. In modern 

 times, they were first used by the inhabitants of 

 the Netherlands, in consequence of the extreme 

 flatness of their country, and the numerous 

 channels of water which intersect it in all direc- 

 tions. As vehicles of transport, canals can 

 never answer as profitable speculations when 

 they have to compete with coasting-vessels of 

 any description, or with any species of convey- 

 ance by rivers. They cannot even, in certain 

 circumstances, compete successfully with railways, 

 on account of the slowness of speed at which 

 barges or boats are drawn along them ; and as 

 speed is becoming daily a matter of greater 

 moment in traffic, canals are, for the most part, 

 gradually losing the conveyance of every kind 

 of goods for which quickness of transit is desirable. 



In order to meet the requirements of modern 

 commercial traffic, in which speed is an essential 

 feature, attempts have been recently made to 

 adapt steam-power to canal traction, but with 

 very limited success. It may not be generally 

 known that the principal obstacle to the use tf 

 steam-engines on board canal-boats is the injury 

 done to the banks by the action of the water from 

 the paddles. This obstacle has to a certain degree 

 been overcome by the use of one-paddled boats 

 the paddle being placed in the line of the boafs 

 keel ; and also by the application of the Archi- 

 medean screw-propeller. Still, steam-dragging is 

 by no means general ; and canals, as a superseded 

 idea, do not now much occupy the attention of 

 engineers and inventors. 



One of the largest canals in Europe is that 

 which extends from the German Ocean to the 

 river Y, at Amsterdam, by which vessels are 

 enabled to reach that city by a direct channel, 

 instead of sailing round by the Zuiderzee. This 

 ship-canal was begun in 1819, and finished in 

 1825, at an expense of ,850,000. Its length is 

 nearly 52 English miles ; its breadth 128 feet at 

 the surface, and 38 feet at the bottom; and its 

 depth 20 feet. It has five locks, each 190 feet 

 long, and 24 broad. A new ship canal, which 

 shortens the distance from Amsterdam to the 

 North Sea to 15 miles, was finished and opened 

 in 1876. The harbour is near Wyk-aan-Zee. 

 The minimum width is 80 yards. 



The greatest canal yet executed is that cut 



439 



