CHAP. VIM. THI-; <;I;AM> TRUNK CANAL. 443 



castle; and IVoin thence to the valley of the Trent the 

 ridge is at the narrowest. That Brindley was correct in 

 determining to t'onn his tunnel at this point has since been 

 confirmed 1>\ the survey of Telford, who there constructed 

 his parallel tunnel for the same canal, and still more 

 recently by the engineers of the North Staffordshire 

 Railway, who have also formed their railway tunnel 

 almost parallel with the line of both canals. 



When Brindley proposed to cut a navigable way 

 under this ridge, it was declared to be chimerical in the 

 extreme. The defeated promoters of the rival projects 

 continued to make war upon it in pamphlets, and in the 

 exasperating language of mock sympathy proclaimed 

 Brindley 's proposed tunnel to be "a sad misfortune," ] 

 inasmuch as it would utterly waste the capital raised 

 by the subscribers, and end in the inevitable ruin of the 

 concern. Some of the small local wits spoke of it as 

 another of Brindley' s " Air Castles ;" but the allusion was 

 not a happy one, as his first " castle in the air," despite 

 all prophecies to the contrary, had been built, and con- 

 tinued to stand firm at Barton ; and judging by the issue 

 of that undertaking, it was reasonable to infer that he 

 might equally succeed in this, difficult though it was 

 on all hands admitted to be. 



The Act was no sooner passed than Brindley set to 

 work to execute the impossible tunnel. Shafts were 

 sunk from the hill-top at different points down to the 

 level of the intended canal. The stuff was drawn out of 



LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF TUNNEL, SHOWING THE STRATA. 



the shafts in the usual way by horse-gins ; and so long as 

 the water was met with in but small quantities, the power 



1 * Sr;i.xon:ililr ( '< msi<l. 'rations/ &o. ; Cjinal pamphlet dated 1766. 



