300 TIIK BlIIDCIEWATEI! CANAL PARTY. 



marl, which was found along the sides of the canal, about 

 a foot below the surface) that, for want of adhesion in 

 the parts, it would not make lime. This most inventive 

 genius happily fell upon an expedient to remedy this 

 misfortune. He thought of tempering this earth in the 

 nature of brick-earth, casting it in moulds like bnYks. 

 and then burning it; and the success was answerable in 

 his wishes. In that state it burnt readily into excellent 

 lime ; and this acquisition was one of the most important 

 that could have been made. I have heard it asserted 

 more than once that this stroke was better than twenty 

 thousand pounds in the Duke's pocket; but, like most 

 common assertions of the same kind, it is probably an 

 exaggeration. However, whether the discovery was 

 worth five, ten, or twenty thousand, it certainly was of 

 noble use, and forwarded all the works in an extraordina rv 



manner." 



It has been stated that Brindley's nervous excitement 

 was so great on the occasion of the letting of the water 

 into the canal, that he took to his bed at the Wlieat- 

 sheaf, in Stretford, and lay there until all cause for ap- 

 prehension was over. The tension on his brain must 

 have been great, with so tremendous a load of work and 

 anxiety upon him ; but that he " ran away," 2 as some of 



1 'Six Months' Tour,' vol. iii., p. this curions book (published at Paris) 

 270-1. Mr. Hughes, C.E., says of was dated " Hotel Kgerton, Paris, '_' 1st 

 this discovery : " The lime thus made ; Dec., 1818;" the second part \va 

 would appear to be the first cement of published two years later; and 

 which we have any knowledge in this : third part, consisting entirely n! 

 country; since the calcareous marl ! note about Hebrew inter] uvtat ions, \\ a 

 here spoken of would probably pro- | published subsequently, lie had ii 

 duce, when burnt, a lime of strong I the mean time become Karl of Bridge 

 hydraulic properties." water, in October, 1823, having l<n 



2 This story was first set on foot, , merly been prebendary of Durham 

 we believe, by the Earl of Bridge- , and rector of Whitchurch in Shrop- 

 water, in his singularly incoherent shire. The late Karl of KMesmere, in 

 publication entitled, ' A Letter to the j his ' Essays on History, Biography,' 

 Parisians and the French Nation upon ; &c., says of this nobleman that " he 

 Inland Navigation, containing a do- died at Paris in the odour of eccen- 

 icnee of the public character of His tricky." But this is a mild deseri| - 

 < i nice Francis Egerton, late Duke of j tion of his lordship, who had at least 

 Bridgewater. By the Hon. Francis i a dozen distinct crazes about canals, 

 lli-nry Kgerton.' The first part of | the Jews, punctuation, the wonderful 



