JAMES B RIND LEY. 69 



of the kingdom to the metropolis, and, by faUing into the 

 Grand Trunk Navigation, forms in fact a continued com- 

 munication by water all the way from London to Liverpool 

 Of this line, the principal part is formed by what is called 

 the Grand Junction Canal, which, commencing at Brentford, 

 stretches north-west till it falls into a branch of the Oxford 

 Canal at Braunston, in Northamptonshire, passing at one place 

 (BUsworth) through a tunnel three thousand and eighty yards 

 in length, eighteen feet high, and sixteen and a half wide. 

 The Regent and Paddington Canals have since formed com- 

 munications between the Grand Junction Canal and the 

 eastern, western, and northern parts of the metropolis. The 

 whole length of the direct waterway thus established between 

 Liverpool and London is about two hundred and sixty-four 

 miles ; but if the different canals which contribute to form 

 the line be all of them measured in their entire length, the 

 aggregate amount of the inland navigation, in this connection 

 alone, will be found to extend to above one thousand four 

 hundred miles. 



The oldest canal in the northern part of the kingdom is that 

 between the Forth and Clyde, which was executed by the 

 celebrated Smeaton, although its plan was revised by Brindley. 

 It commences at Grangemouth, on the Carron, at a short 

 distance from where that river falls into the Forth, and 

 originally terminated at Port Dundas, in the neighbourhood 

 of Glasgow. A portion of this canal, owing to the great 

 descent of the ground over which it passes towards the west, 

 has no fewer than twenty locks in the first ten miles and a 

 half It was afterwards carried farther west to Dalmuir, on 

 the Clyde, and is now connected with the Glasgow and 

 Saltcoats Canal, whose course is across the counties of 



