Rivers and River Transport 1 1 1 



very place where they are made, or grow ; or, at most, going 

 no further to it, than to his ordinary Market." 



Thus the ideal river-ports were those that were situated, 

 not only a good distance inland, but in close connection with 

 a Roman or other road along which commerce could be readily 

 brought or distributed, the land journey being reduced to 

 the smallest and most convenient proportions. The advantage 

 was still greater where the small sea-going vessels could be 

 carried by a tidal stream right up to the town to which their 

 cargo was consigned. 



As against these advantages, however, there was the dis- 

 advantage that, the further inland the river-port, the greater 

 was the risk that access to it might become impracticable 

 either through the formation of shallows in the river-bed or 

 because the larger build of vessels in later years could not 

 pass where the smaller and more primitive type of ship of 

 earlier days had gone without difficulty. 



From one or other of these causes many English rivers on 

 which considerable traffic formerly passed have dwindled in 

 importance, even if they have not ceased to be navigable at all ; 

 and many inland places that once flourished as river, or even 

 as " sea "-ports, would to-day hardly be regarded in that light 

 at all, as shown, for example, by the fate of Lewes on the 

 Sussex Ouse, Deeping on the Welland, Cambridge on the Cam, 

 Ely on the Ouse, West Dean on the Cuckmere, and Bawtry 

 on the Idle. York and Doncaster, though situated so far 

 inland, once considered themselves seaports because of their 

 river connection with the coast, so that, as told by the Rev. W. 

 Denton, in " England in the Fifteenth Century," they claimed 

 and exercised the right of sharing in " wrecks at sea " as 

 though they stood on the seaboard instead of high up the 

 course of the Ouse or the Don. 



The Romans not only supplemented their road transport 

 by river transport but they sought to improve the latter by the 

 construction of river embankments. In the case of the Trent 

 and the Witham they even cut a canal the Fossdyke in 

 order to establish direct communication between them. 

 Just, however, as road-making became a lost art here on their 

 departure from Britain, so did an interval of a thousand years 

 elapse before there was any material attempt to follow their 

 example in effecting improvements in river navigation. The 



