NAVIGABLE RIVERS AND CANALS. 27 1 
of l600l. per annum. The principal article carried 
upon this canal is salt, and coals for making it. 
About the year J 790 , a barge canal was projected 
from Birmingham to the Severn deep water, below 
Worcester, for vessels of sixty tons burden, the ground 
surveyed, and application made to parliament; this 
project was undertaken almost in defiance of opposi¬ 
tion, expense, and difficulties; strong opposition was 
made in parliament by other canal proprietors, and 
persons interested in mill streams stirred up to jealousy 
and opposition. It was stated to parliament, that the 
coal country would be exhausted, by increasing the 
outlets for that article, and the manufactures thereon 
depending ruined*, in consequence of which, by order 
of parliament, a general survey of the coal country 
was taken, which, proving satisfactory respecting quan¬ 
tity of coal, and the projectors giving up all claim to 
mill streams, and undertaking to supply the canal with 
water from the Heavens, and by a tier of steam en¬ 
gines to pump water from the river Severn, an act was 
obtained, after soliciting it through two or three ses¬ 
sions of parliament, at the expense of about lo,000l. 
The canal commences with a tunnel under a hill near 
Birmingham, and after continuing three or four miles 
with a six feet water, and bridges built upon a scale 
for barges to pass under, has two deep valleys to en¬ 
counter at Selly Oak and Barnbrook End, of four or five 
hundred yards across, and thirty feet or more in depth ; 
these are filled up with a wet loose marl, dug out of the 
deep cutting or excavation of the canal, and which, being 
of a loose texture, was with difficulty kept together, 
and not without timber to tie it and keep it within 
bounds ; the Barnbrook embankment has a waffar-on 
load under the canal bottom, being of sufficient height 
for 
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