56 JilSEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 



But the character of this man's mind was comprehensive- 

 ness and grandeur of conception ; and he had not yet found 

 any adequate field for the display of his vast ideas and almost 

 inexhaustible powers of execution. Happily, however, this 

 was at last afforded him, by the commencement of a series 

 of undertakings in this country, which deservedly rank among 

 the achievements of modern enterprise and mechanical skill, 

 and which were destined, within no long period, to change 

 the whole aspect of the internal commerce of the island. 



Artificial water roads, or canals, were well known to the 

 ancients. Without transcribing all the learning that has 

 been collected upon the subject, and may be found in any 

 of the common treatises, we may merely state that the 

 Egyptians had early effected a junction by this means 

 between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean ; that both 

 the Greeks and the Romans attempted to cut a canal across 

 the Isthmus of Corinth; and the latter people actually cut 

 one in Britain from the neighbourhood of Peterborough to 

 that of Lincoln, some traces of which are still discernible. 

 Canal navigation is also of considerable antiquity in China. 

 The greatest work of this description in the world is the 

 Imperial Canal of that country, which is two hundred feet 

 broad, and, commencing at Pekin, extends southward to 

 the distance of about nine hundred miles. It is supposed 

 to have been constructed about eight centuries ago ; but 

 there are a great many smaller works of the same kind in 

 the country, many of which are undoubtedly much older. 

 The Chinese are unacquainted, as were also the ancients, 

 with the contrivance called a lock, by means of which 

 different levels are connected in many of our modern 

 European canals, and which, as probably all our readers 



