34 



isf December y 1891. 



Professor M. F. FitzGerald, B.A., C.E., in the Chair. 



T. C. Rayner, Esq., A.M.I.C.E., read a Paper entitled 

 THE MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL WORKS. 



Mr. Rayner, who was received with applause, said the 

 Manchester Ship Canal was an enterprise of such exceptional 

 magnitude that it had naturally excited more than usual 

 interest in the public mind, not only in the United Kingdom, 

 but, he might almost say, throughout the civilised world. The 

 densely populated manufacturing district, of which Manchester 

 was the metropolis, was on the eve of undergoing a great change, 

 the importance of which it was almost impossible to estimate. 

 Shortly, a population of more than 7,000,000 (one-fifth of the 

 whole inhabitants of the United Kingdom) would have a nearer 

 ocean steamer port than they now possessed. The district 

 affected by the ship canal embraced more than one hundred and 

 fifty industrial towns, one hundred of which had a population 

 exceeding 10,000, and eleven exceeded 100,000, including Man- 

 chester and its suburbs, with a population of 850,000. The 

 boundary of this area included 7,500 square miles, and the 

 density of population within a triangle drawn inside this, was 

 about 5,414 per square mile, being thirteen times as great as the 

 density per square mile in Belgium and Holland, usually con- 

 sidered to be the most densely populated countries in Europe, 

 and nineteen times as great as that in the rest of the area of the 

 United Kingdom. 



Having been engaged himself on the ship canal works for 

 several years, he could speak from personal knowledge of a good 

 de^l of wh^t he would refer to that evening. The city of Man- 



