148 



LANCASTER CANAL. 



PART VII. 



population of the valleys along which it passed, placing 

 them in direct communication with the markets of Man- 

 chester and Liverpool, and, through the latter port, 

 opening up a water road to the world at large. 



LUNfi AQUEDUCT, NEAR LANCASTER. 

 [By Percival Skelton, after his original Drawing 



The Lancaster Canal was another enterprise con- 

 ducted by Mr. Eennie in the same neighbourhood. A 

 navigable communication between the coal-fields near 

 Wigan and the lime districts about Lancaster, Burton, 

 and Kendal, connecting these towns also with the in- 

 tervening country as well as with Liverpool, Man- 

 chester, and the towns of South Lancashire, had long 

 been regarded as an object of importance. A survey 

 had been made by Mr. Brindley as early as 1772, 

 but nothing further was done until some twenty years 

 later, when a company was formed, with Mr. Eennie as 

 engineer. The line surveyed by him commences near 

 Wigan, and proceeds northward by Chorley, Preston, and 

 Garstang, to Lancaster, where, skirting the east side of 

 the town, and crossing the Lune by a noble aqueduct, it 

 then passes by Haughbridge to its northern terminus at 



