C&AP.VI. DUKF/S CANAL To Rl M '< >KN. 389 



ford I>nl ( MV AV;IS liiii^liril ;ml gravel KM I over, and the 

 ciiiUmkinriii was steadily proceeding U'yond the Mersey 

 in tin 1 manner above' dcscriU'd. 



I>rindley did not want for good workmen to carry out 

 liis plans. He found plenty of labourers in the neigh- 

 bourhood accustomed to hard work, who speedily became 

 expert excavators ; and though there was at first a lack of 

 skilled carpenters, blacksmiths, and bricklayers, they soon 

 became trained into such under the vigilant eye of so 

 expert a master as Brindley was. We find him, in his 

 note-book, often referring to the men by their names, 

 or rather byenames, for in Lancashire proper names 

 seem to have been little used at that time. " Black 

 David" was one of the foremen most employed on diffi- 

 cult matters, and "Bill o Toms" and " Busick Jack" 

 seem also to have been confidential workmen in their 

 respective departments. We are informed by a gentle- 

 man of the neighbourhood 1 that most of the labourers 

 employed were of a superior class, and some of them 

 were " wise " or " cunning men," blood-stoppers, herb- 

 doctors, and planet-rulers, such as are still to be found 

 in the neighbourhood of Manchester. 2 Their very super- 



1 It. ItaAvlinson, Esq., C.K., En- earth's diurnsil and annual motion, 



gineer to the Bridgewater (.'anal. after the manner of an orrery. The 



: Whilst constructing the canal, whole of the calculations were made 



Brindley was very intimate with one j by himself, and the machine is said 



Lawrence Karnshaw, of Mottram, a to have been so exactly contrived and 



kindred mechanical genius, though in 

 a smaller way. Lawrence was a very 

 | .oor man's son, ami had served a seven 



executed that, provided the vibration 

 of the pendulum did not vary, the 

 machine would not alter a minute in 



years' apprenticeship to the trade of a . a hundred years ; but this might pro- 

 tailor, after which he bound himselt bably be an extravagant estimate on 

 apprentice to a clothier for seven j the part of Eamshaw'fl friends. He 



years; but these trades not suiting was also a .musical instrument maker 



his tastes, and Ix-ing of a strongly and music teacher, a worker in metals 



mechanical turn, he finally bound 



himself apprentice to a clockmaker, 

 whom lie also served for seven years. 

 This eccentric pel-son invented many 

 curious and ingenious machines, which 



and in wood, a painter and gla/ier, 

 an optician, a Itellldiinder, a chemist 

 and metallurgist, an engraver in 

 short, an almost universal mechanical 

 genius. But though he could make 



were regarded as of great merit in his all these things, it is mentioned as a 

 time. One of these was an astro-no- remarkaUe tact that with all his in- 



mical and geographical machine, 

 U-aiitilully executed, showing the 



genuity, and after many efforts (for 

 he made many), he never could make 



