St 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



I Febbuaby, 



iiifr ; hero notliinjj of the sort is attempted. On other roads, all 

 (jates, except in eases of extreme necessity, and tlien witli some 

 person to watch them, are carefully excluded. On these, there is 

 usually u frate at the end of every field, the hcdfres ruiniinj; down 

 to the' water: as if a premium had heen ort'cred for the multiplica- 

 ti(ui of causes of ohstruction. — 3rdly. The iiltfinlniirc <it llic IocIiK, 

 wliich correspond to the turnpikes on land roads. On land- 

 travelliuir a turnpike-house is a necessary adjunct to a turnpike- 

 fjate. as close as possihle. But where in water-travellinp do we 

 (iiid lock-houses — or, if found, at what distance are they situated 

 from the locks intrusted to the care of the occupiers? — 4thly. The 

 rmistniet'mn of the bi-iiiges so low down to the water, as to leave no 

 room between them and it for an ordinary load to ])ass. 



II. Amonn; the matters in which the necessity of alteration will, 

 prohahly, he admitted as soon as pointed out, are these : — 1st. Tlie 

 nii])Hviit'wn of artificial locomotive poirrr. In this respect, it must be 

 ai'knowledifed that England is somewhat in advance of her neiixh- 

 liours, f(u- she has attained to horse-power on trackways; whereas, 

 in tlie inland naviffation of the ccmtinent, when the wind fails, the 

 means of locomotion usually had recourse to are either shoving- 

 with Itmix poles; or ropes made fast to posts and drawn in by direct 

 hand draught; or men and women yoked like brute beasts, with 

 broad belts over their breasts, upon which (even women's breasts) 

 the weight of the draught appears to be borne, — a sight sickening 

 and revidting. England is in advance of these, and for such brute 

 labour has applied brutes instead of human beings ; hut still only 

 fm- direct draught : the living horse has as yet not been applied to 

 leverage in this service [as is used in Canada] ; nor have those 

 cheapest and most obvious of all artificial powers, the water- 

 wheel and the wind-wheel, been as yet a])plied for a purpose for 

 which in so many cases they are so admirably adapted ; nor sta- 

 tionary steam-engines, except in one or two instances. In a few 

 rases, paddle-wheels have been called in, which, on many accounts, 

 are the most undesirable of all for this particular service. — 2ndly. 

 The construction of the barges: first, as to their material, which, in 

 almost all cases, now is of wood, more expensive, less durable, 

 heavier, and more bulky than iron, to a very consideral)le propor- 

 tion ; secondly, so that the barge may float on the water, and not 

 below its level, necessitating the drawing through it. ^Vhat the 

 specific gravity of atmospheric air is, seems a point not easy of 

 solution, seeing that the barometer exhibits a perpetual fluctuation; 

 but the specific gravity of water is stated on good authority to be 

 G2i5 lb. to the cubic foot. When it is considered that for every 

 cubic foot of barge below the water-level, C2i lb. weight of water 

 has to be moved at every inch, one would have thought the atten- 

 tion of all concerned would have been directed to carry as much 

 of the cargo above and as little below as possible. But, somehow 

 or another, a diametrically opposite course is almost universally 

 adopted : about three inches of the barge appears above the water- 

 line, and all the rest is sunk below — so that the gi-eatest resistance 

 which the case will permit is carefully secured. — .Srdly. The means 

 of ascending or descending from one water-level to another. As yet, in 

 England, we have attained only to the old lock, and that so con- 

 structed as to afford the chief cause of detention in water convey- 

 ance. The consumption of time, the strain upon the cattle, the 

 wear and tear of tackle, now required in drawing a deep-laden 

 barge into a lock, ai-e well known to all wlui have to do with inland 

 navigation. Yet, apparently, it requires little contemplation of a 

 lock, to see how (even without altering the construction of the 

 barges, and still dragging the goods through the water) an immense 

 saving of time and labour may be effected, by a slight alteration ; 

 while the field for invention and experiment in perpeinlicular lifts 

 and inclined planes is as yet almost unoccupied ; only our neigh- 

 bours in the United States of America have lately adopted one 

 species of the former, while those in China have of long time very 

 extensively employed the latter — of which some account and draw- 

 ings are to be found in Lord Macartney's Embassy.^tthly. The 

 supjili/ of voter : both in the saving it at the change of levels, and 

 in securing supplies in dry weather, all must see how much remains 

 to be doiu' ; while, few, probably, who apply their minds to it, will 

 consider any great difficulty to lie in the way of improvement. 



III. Of matters calling for improvement, which it reipiires ar- 

 gument or experiment to establish, it will suffice to suggest one, of 

 a inccliani(^al nature — which is, //«« jjoint of draught ; to which, at 

 ])resent, as far as apj)ears, no attention has heen paid ; hut which, 

 it is hard to conceive to be a thing indlft'erent. But of this class, 

 the most important is tlie jointed system of our lines of inland 

 navigation — broken into short pieces, under distinct governments, 

 like the turnpike trusts ; but attempting against one another a 

 system of injury, which the trustees of turnpike roads have, appa- 



rently, never contemplated. Between London and Birmingliam, 

 for instance, there are as many as four such, at least. It is in vain 

 that one, two, or three of these concur in meeting the public 

 convenience and their own general interests, by reduction of tolls 

 or any other C(uubiued improvement, as long as it is in the ])ower 

 of the remaining portion or ])orti(ms to profit by the reductions of 

 the others, by either maintaining their own tolls at the unreduced 

 rate, or even raising them in the face of the reduction of others ; 

 both of which cases are found not unfrequently to occur. 



Chapter III. — On the Formation of Inland Navigation Conveyance 

 Companies. 



The only apparent metluul of overcoming the last-named diffi- 

 culty in the way of the im|)rovement of inland navigation — namely, 

 that arising from the division of intei'ests at work u]ion all our 

 chief lines (apart from direct legislative interference, which is the 

 last and least-desirable remedy,) — is the formation of conveyance 

 companies throughout a whole line ; offering to all the different 

 navigation com])anies along the line, shares according to their mile- 

 age ; and to all the parties already trading on those luivigations, 

 shares according to the amount of capital already embarked in 

 this employment. By tliis means it should seem not merely prac- 

 ticable but easy to unite, for thecommon benefit of all, those interests, 

 the confliction of which at present is found to be injurious to all. 



The writer, who is a clergyman, and who has turned his atten- 

 tion to the improvement of this department of human industry, 

 chiefly, or rather solely, with the view of making it subservient to 

 the best interests, present and future, of mankind, has already in 

 several quarters privately put forward suggestions for the forma- 

 tion of such companies, which have hitherto been generally favour- 

 ably received; — he now desires to submit them more extensively to 

 the consideration of his fellow-men, based upon this condition, 

 which he has in\'ariably exhibited — namely. That provision for the 

 spiritual and educational wants of all the emptogi'es of such a company, 

 and of all who are called i)ito Ijeing (hi/ the encouragement given to 

 marriage J hg its prosperity — and also for their bodily wants, in sick- 

 ness, accidents, and superannuation — shall form a first and necessary 

 item of such company's expenditure to an extent not exceeding one- 

 tenth of the whole. 



How extensively such a principle, if generally adopted by our 

 great companies, would tend to the amelioration of society, and the 

 comfort and well-being of all classes, drawing them together by 

 the surest bonds of Christian faith ami love, there can he no need 

 of words to demonstrate. The more each man contemplates it in 

 his own breast, the more (the writer believes) it will be found to 

 commend itself, alike acceptalile to God and ajjproved of men. 



Taking Birmingham as the centre of British industry, such com- 

 panies may obviously m ith advantage be formed, respectively, on 

 the following main lines, omitting for the present the considera- 

 tion of the less important : — 1. Birmingham, Arorcester, Gloucester, 

 and Bristol ; 2. Birmingham, Chester, and Liverpool ; 3. Birming- 

 ham, Manchester, Leeds, Halifax, and Hull; 4. Birmingham and 

 London; 5. Birmingham and Chichester. Again, (i. Hull and 

 Liverpool; 7. Hull and London ; 8. London and Bristol ; 9. Lon- 

 don and Chichester. 



To complete the line of inland navigation from Birmingham and 

 the manufacturing districts to the British Channel, there needs but 

 to connect the Grand Junction with the Colne, a cut of one or two 

 miles, which falls into the Thames at Egham, from which the out- 

 let is at Weybridge ; and so by Guildford and Arundel. This at 

 present neglected, but surely most important, line from London to 

 the British Channel, either into Arundel or Chichester — that is to 

 say, Langston harbour — is quite complete. By it, if a proper com- 

 pany were formed, and the commonest appliances brought to bear, 

 goods discharged in either of those harbours could be landed at 

 London-bridge easily within twenty-four hours, at a highly re- 

 munerative charge of ten shillings per ton, covering all. 'fhus, in 

 time of war, all the hazard to our merchandise which the Duke of 

 Wellington lias ])rognosticated from French steamers in the little 

 French ports, with the sun always on their backs, would be obviated, 

 and the incalculable expenditure contemplated in the acknow- 

 ledgedly-hopeless undertaking of making a Harbour of Refuge at 

 Dover would be superseded. And at all times the risk of insurance 

 from weather, the chief jiart of which from China to London is cal- 

 culated on the passage through tlie Straits of Dover and round the 

 coast of Kent, to say nothing of delays incalculable, would be re- 

 moved. The present unoccuiiied harbour of Langston is of size to 

 receive in safety the whole merchant fleet of the country. Again, 

 by continuing the navigation of tiie Wey beyond Godalming in the 

 direction of Alresford, and extending the navigation of the Itchin, 

 with a cut of five or six miles to unite them, another line of inland 



