£72 NAVIGABLE RIVERS AND CANALS, 
for that purpose, and to admit the highest loads ; these 
works were completed at an enormous expense, and 
the cutting in the course of the canal, is often twenty 
or thirty feet deep. 
Between King’s Norton and Alvechurch, a very 
formidable tunnel intervenes, being upwards of a mile 
in length, and passing through a loose springy marl; 
this has been long in hand, but is not yet completed so 
as to be navigable through, being a work of great ex¬ 
pense, labour, and difficulty. The lockage of 450 feet 
fall to the Severn is not yet commenced, so that much 
remains to be done in completion of this great and 
public spirited undertaking, which, when finished, 
will bring the barges of the Severn over valleys and 
under hills, to along side the wharfs at Birmingham, 
in a position 150 yards perpendicularly above their 
usual and natural situation. A communication with 
the Droitwich canal was intended; also in the course 
of the canal a basin near the city of Worcester, upon a 
level considerably above that of the Severn. 
The summit level of this canal, from the wharfs at 
Birmingham, when finished, will be sixteen miles and 
three quarters in length. Upon this, and its collateral 
branches, some business is now doing in the convey¬ 
ance of coals, lime, and other articles. 
About the same time, or soon after, a canal was pro¬ 
jected across Herefordshire, in the direction of King- 
ton, Leominster, and to enter Worcestershire near 
Tenbury, and from thence, across the latter county to 
Stourport, which would have opened a direct commu¬ 
nication with the Staffordshire coal mines, the town of 
Birmingham, and the Severn. The Herefordshire part 
is, 1 believe, finished, and four or five miles cut into 
Worcestershire, near the coal works of Mamble; but 
here 
