it has since actually done, by way of stem, from which other similar lines might proceed as branches to different points. By this canal, a complete water communication was established, though by a somewhat circuitous sweep, between the great ports of Liverpool on the west coast, and Hull on the east. A branch from it, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal, was afterwards carried to the river Severn; and thus a union was effected between the port of Bristol and the two already mentioned. This branch, being about forty-six miles long, was also executed by Brindley, and was completed in 1772. Similar communications were subsequently formed from other points on the south coast to the central counties. But the most important line of English canals is that which extends from the centre of the kingdom to the metropolis, and, by falling into the Grand Trunk Navigation, forms in fact a continued communication by water all the way from London to Liverpool. Of this line, the principal part is formed by what is called the Grand Junction Canal, which, commencing at Brentford, stretches north-west till it falls into a branch of the Oxford Canal, at Braunston, in Northamptonshire, passing at one place (Blisworth) through a tunnel three thousand and eighty yards in length, eighteen feet high, and sixteen and a half wide. The Regent and Paddington canals have since formed communications between the Grand Junction Canal, and the eastern, western, and northern parts of the metropolis. The whole length of the direct water-way thus established between Liverpool and London is about two hundred and sixty-four miles; but if the different canals which contribute to form the line be all of them measured in their entire length, the aggregate amount of the inland navigation, in this con

nexion alone, will be found to extend to above one thousand four hundred miles.

The oldest canal in the northern part of the kingdom is that between the Forth and Clyde, which was executed by the celebrated Smeaton, although its plan was revised by Brindley. It commences at Grangemouth, on the Carron, at a short distance from where that river falls into the Forth, and originally terminated at Port Dundas, in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. A portion of this canal, owing to the great descent of the ground over which it passes towards the west, has no fewer than twenty locks in the first ten miles and a half. It was afterwards carried farther west to Dalmuir, on the Clyde; and is now connected with the Glasgow and Saltcoats canal, whose course is across the counties of Renfrew and Ayr, to the river Garnock, which flows into the Atlantic opposite to the Isle of Arran. More recently, a branch has been extended from its north-eastern extremity, along the south bank of the Forth, as far as Edinburgh; so that the whole now forms an uninterrupted line of canal navigation from the east to the west coast of Scotland. The famous Caledonian Canal, in the north of Scotland, also unites the two opposite seas, and indeed runs pretty nearly parallel to a part of the line that has just been described. It was commenced in 1802, under the management of Mr Telford, who conducted it throughout; and was first opened on the 23d of October, 1822. The distance between the German and the Atlantic Oceans, measured in the direction of this canal, is two hundred and fifty miles; but of this nearly two hundred and thirty miles, consisting of friths and lakes, were already navigable. The canal itself, therefore, which has cost about a million of pounds

sterling, is only, properly speaking, about twenty miles in length; and, had not steam navigation been fortunately discovered while the work was going on, there seems every reason to believe that the cut would have been nearly useless.

The entire length of the canal navigation already formed in Great Britain and Ireland is not much under three thousand miles. The whole of this is the creation of the last seventy years, during which period, therefore, considerably above forty miles of canal may be said to have been produced every year, a truly extraordinary evidence of the spirit and resources of a country, which has been able to continue so large an expenditure, for so long a time, on a single object; and which has in a single year, during that period, spent almost as much money upon war as all those canals together have cost for three quarters of a century. If Brindley had never lived, we should undoubtedly ere now have been in possession of much of this accommodation; for the time was ripe for its introduction, and an increasing commerce, every where seeking vent, could not have failed, ere long, to have struck out for itself, to a certain extent, these new facilities. But had it not been for the example set by his adventurous genius, the progress of artificial navigation among us would probably have been timid and slow, compared to what it has been. For a long time, in all likelihood, our only canals would have been a few small ones, cut in the more level parts of the country, like that substituted in 1775 for the Sankey Brook, the benefit of each of which would have been extremely insignificant, and confined to a very narrow neighbourhood. He did, in the very infancy of the art, what has not yet been outdone; struggling, indeed, with such difficulties, and triumphing over them, as could be scarcely exceeded by any his suc

cessors might have to encounter. By the boldness and success with which, in particular, he carried the Grand Trunk Navigation across the elevated ground of the midland counties, he demonstrated that there was hardly any part of the island where a canal might not be formed; and, accordingly, this very central ridge, which used to be deemed so insurmountable an obstacle to the junction of our opposite coasts, is now intersected by more than twenty canals beside the one which he first drove through the barrier. It is in the conception and accomplishment of such grand and fortunate devictions from ordinary practice that we discern the power, and confess the value, of original genius.

The case of Brindley affords us a wonderful example of what the force of natural talent will sometimes do in attaining an acquaintance with particular departments of science, in the face of almost every conceivable disadvantage-where not only all education is wanting, but even all access to books. Nor is he the only celebrated practical mechanician that might be named, whose inventive faculties have been successfully exercised without any help from literature. The French engineer, SWALM RENKIN, or RANNEQUIN, as he is more commonly called, who, in the reign of Louis XIV., constructed the famous machine of Marli for raising the water of the Seine to the gardens of Versailles, was originally only a common carpenter at Liege, where he was born about the middle of the seventeenth century, and had no means of acquiring knowledge except in the work-shop and by his own reflection. A learned contemporary writer, Professor Weidler of Wittemberg, describes him by the Greek epithet avaDaßntos-ignorant even of the alphabet. the apparatus which he erected at Versailles, and which was of extraordinary complexity, was regarded

Yet

in that age as the greatest mechanical wonder in the world. It raised water from the Seine to the height of four hundred and seventy-six feet above the level of the river. The Italian engineer, NICHOLAS ZABAGLIA, who was born at Rome in 1674, was also originally a poor working carpenter, and altogether uneducated. In this capacity he was first employed at the Vatican; and yet he was eventually appointed to preside over the building of St Peter's, where he did not, however, confine himself to the duties of superintendence and direction, but continued to work with his own hands as before. Zabaglia was the author of many mechanical contrivances, distinguished for their simplicity and elegance. He was the contemporary of BARTHOLOMEW FERRACINO, another self-taught mechanician of great genius. Ferracino was bred a sawyer, in which occupation he was employed while very young, and when the severe labour was almost too much for his strength. He at length, however, contrived a saw which moved by the wind, and did his work for him. After this, he invented many other ingenious machines, and acquired a distinguished reputation in various departments of practical mechanics. The great clock in the Place of St Mark, at Venice, was constructed by him. But his greatest work was the bridge over the Brenta, near his native town of Bassano, which has been much celebrated. Ferracino was quite ignorant of books; and when his friends would sometimes judiciously advise him to give his great natural powers fair play, by applying himself to the regular study of the principles of mechanical science, he used to say, with a foolish laugh, which his ignorance alone could excuse, that nature had been a very good teacher to him, and that he had all the book he wanted in his head. Our own country