146 



ROCHDALE CANAL. 



TART VII. 



which the canal had to be carried having to be lifted 

 from lock to lock over the great mountain-ridge known 

 as " the backbone of England "- few works have had 

 greater physical obstacles to encounter than this be- 

 tween Rochdale and Todmorden. A little before the 





LOCKS ON THE ROCHDALE CANAL. 

 [By Pcrcival Skelton, after his original Drawing ] 



traveller by railway enters the tunnel near Littleborough, 

 on his way between Manchester and Leeds, he can 

 discern the canal mounting up the rocky sides of the 

 hills until it is lost in the distance ; and as he emerges 

 from the tunnel at its other end, it is again observed 

 descending from the hill-tops by a flight of locks down 

 to the level of the railway. In crossing the range at 

 one place, a stupendous cutting, fifty feet deep, had to 

 be blasted through hard rock. In other places, where it 

 climbs along the face of the hill, it is overhung by 

 precipices. On the Yorkshire side, at Todmorden, the 

 valley grows narrower and narrower, overhung by steep, 

 often almost perpendicular, rocks of millstone-grit, with 





