CHAP. XIII. DOCKS, DRAINAGE, AND BRIDGES. 461 



CHAFTEE XIII. 



DOCKS, DRAINAGE, AND BRIDGES. 







IT will have been observed, from the Lives of those 

 Engineers which we have thus far been enabled to lay 

 before the reader, how much has been done by skill and 

 industry to open up and develope the material resources 

 of the kingdom. The stages of improvement which we 

 have recorded exhibit a measure of the vital energy 

 which has from time to time existed in the nation. In 

 the earlier periods the war was with nature ; the sea was 

 held back by embankments ; the Thames, instead of 

 being allowed to overspread the wide marshes on either 

 hank, was confined within limited bounds, by which 

 the navigable depth of its channel was increased at the 

 same time that a wide extent of land was rendered 

 available for agriculture. 



In those early days the great object was to render 

 the land more habitable, comfortable, and productive. 

 Marshes were reclaimed, and wastes subdued. But so long 

 MS the country remained comparatively closed, and inter- 

 course was restricted by the want of bridges and roads, 

 improvement was extremely slow. Whilst roads are the 

 consequence of civilization, they are also among its most 

 influential causes. We have seen even the blind Metcalf 

 acting as an effective instrument of progress in the 

 northern counties by the formation of long lines of road. 

 Brindley -and the Duke of Bridgewater carried on the 

 work in the same districts, and conferred upon the north 

 and north-west of England the blessings of cheap and 

 effective water communication. Smeaton followed and 

 carried out similar undertakings in still remoter places, 



