64 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 



originality, and fertility of his genius, and because from it is 

 also to be dated the commencement of that extended canal 

 navigation which now forms so important a part of our means 

 of internal communication in this country. While the Bridge- 

 water canal was yet in progress, Mr. Brindley was engaged by 

 Lord Gower,^ and the other principal landed proprietors in 

 Staffordshire, to survey a line for another canal, which it was 

 proposed should pass through that county, and, by uniting the 

 Trent and the Mersey, open for it a communication, by water, 

 with both the east and west coast. Having reported favourably 

 of the practicability of this design, and an Act of Parliament 

 having been obtained in 1765 for carrying it into effect, he was 

 appointed to conduct the work. The scheme was one which 

 had been often thought of ; but the supposed impossibility of 

 carrying the canal across the tract of elevated country which 

 stretches along the central region of England had hitherto pre- 

 vented any attempt to execute it. This was, however, precisely 

 such an obstacle as Brindley delighted to cope with ; and he at 

 once overcame it, by carrying a tunnel through Harecastle 

 Hill, of two thousand eight hundred and eighty yards in length, 

 at a depth, in some places, of more than two hundred feet 

 below the surface of the earth. This was only one of five 

 tunnels excavated in different parts of the canal, which extends 

 to the length of ninety-three miles, having seventy-six locks, and 

 passing in its course over many aqueducts. Brindley, however, 

 did not live to execute the whole of this great work, which was 

 finished by his brother-in-law, Mr. Henshall, in 1777, about 

 eleven years after its com.mencement. 



^ Lord Gower married a sister of the Duke of Bridgewater ; and his 

 grace left his canal property in Lancashire to his nephew, the Marques.s 

 of Stafford. 



