labours of many years, during which the difficulties encountered in

their construction" target="_blank" title="n.建设；修建；结构">construction had swelled the cost of the canal far beyond the
original estimate. The rapid advances which had taken place in the

interval in the prices of labour and materials also tended greatly
to increase the expenses, and, after all, the canal, when completed

and opened, was comparatively little used. This was doubtless
owing, in a great measure, to the rapid changes which occurred in

the system of navigationshortly after the projection" target="_blank" title="n.设计；发射；放映">projection of the
undertaking. For these Telford was not responsible. He was called

upon to make the canal, and he did so in the best manner.
Engineers are not required to speculate as to the commercial value

of the works they are required to construct; and there were
circumstances connected with the scheme of the Caledonian Canal

which removed it from the category of mere commercial adventures.
It was a Government project, and it proved a failure as a paying

concern. Hence it formed a prominent topic for discussion in the
journals of the day; but the attacks made upon the Government

because of their expenditure on the haplessundertaking were
perhaps more felt by Telford, who was its engineer, than by all the

ministers of state conjoined.
"The unfortunate issue of this great work," writes the present

engineer of the canal, to whom we are indebted for many of the
preceding facts, "was a grievousdisappointment to Mr. Telford,

and was in fact the one great bitter in his otherwise unalloyed cup
of happiness and prosperity. The undertaking was maligned by

thousands who knew nothing of its character. It became 'a dog with
a bad name,' and all the proverbial consequences followed.

The most absurd errors and misconceptions were propagated respecting
it from year to year, and it was impossible during Telford's lifetime

to stem the torrent of popular prejudice and objurgation. It must,
however, be admitted, after a long experience, that Telford was

greatly over-sanguine in his expectations as to the national uses
of the canal, and he was doomed to suffer acutely in his personal

feelings, little though he may have been personally to blame, the
consequences of what in this commercial country is regarded as so

much worse than a crime, namely, a financial mistake."*[2]
Mr. Telford's great sensitiveness made him feel the ill success of

this enterprise far more than most other men would have done.
He was accustomed to throw himself into the projects on which he

was employed with an enthusiasm almost poetic. He regarded them
not merely as so much engineering, but as works which were to be

instrumental in opening up the communications of the country and
extending its civilization. Viewed in this light, his canals,

roads, bridges, and harbours were unquestionably of great national
importance, though their commercial results might not in all cases

justify the estimates of their projectors. To refer to like
instances--no one can doubt the immense value and public uses of

Mr. Rennie's Waterloo Bridge or Mr. Robert Stephenson's Britannia
and Victoria Bridges, though every one knows that, commercially,

they have been failures. But it is probable that neither of these
eminent engineers gave himself anything like the anxious concern

that Telford did about the financial issue of his undertaking.
Were railway engineers to fret and vex themselves about the commercial

value of the schemes in which they have been engaged, there are few
of them but would be so haunted by the ghosts of wrecked speculations

that they could scarcely lay their heads upon their pillows for a
single night in peace.

While the Caledonian Canal was in progress, Mr. Telford was
occupied in various works of a similar kind in England and Scotland,

and also upon one in Sweden. In 1804, while on one of his journeys
to the north, he was requested by the Earl of Eglinton and others

to examine a project for making a canal from Glasgow to Saltcoats
and Ardrossan, on the north-western coast of the county of Ayr,

passing near the important manufacturing town of Paisley. A new
survey of the line was made, and the works were carried on during

several successive years until a very fine capacious canal was
completed, on the same level, as far as Paisley and Johnstown.

But the funds of the company falling short, the works were stopped,
and the canal was carried no further. Besides, the measures adopted

by the Clyde Trustees to deepen the bed of that river and enable
ships of large burden to pass up as high as Glasgow, had proved so

successful that the ultimateextension of the canal to Ardrossan
was no longer deemed necessary, and the prosecution of the work was

accordingly abandoned. But as Mr. Telford has observed, no person
suspected, when the canal was laid out in 1805, "that steamboats

would not only monopolise the trade of the Clyde, but penetrate
into every creek where there is water to float them, in the British

Isles and the continent of Europe, and be seen in every quarter of
the world."

Another of the navigations on which Mr. Telford was long employed
was that of the river Weaver in Cheshire. It was only twenty-four

miles in extent, but of considerable importance to the country
through which it passed, accommodating the salt-manufacturing

districts, of which the towns of Nantwich, Northwich, and Frodsham
are the centres. The channel of the river was extremely crooked

and much obstructed by shoals, when Telford took the navigation in
hand in the year 1807, and a number of essential improvements were

made in it, by means of new locks, weirs, and side cuts, which had
the effect of greatly improving the communications of these

important districts.
In the following year we find our engineer consulted, at the

instance of the King of Sweden, on the best mode of constructing
the Gotha Canal, between Lake Wenern and the Baltic, to complete

the communication with the North Sea. In 1808, at the invitation
of Count Platen, Mr. Telford visited Sweden and made a careful

survey of the district. The service occupied him and his
assistants two months, after which he prepared and sent in a series

of detailed plans and sections, together with an elaborate report
on the subject. His plans having been adopted, he again visited

Sweden in 1810, to inspect the excavations which had already been
begun, when he supplied the drawings for the locks and bridges.

With the sanction of the British Government, he at the same time
furnished the Swedish contractors with patterns of the most

improved tools used in canal making, and took with him a number of
experienced lock-makers and navvies for the purpose of instructing

the native workmen.
The construction" target="_blank" title="n.建设；修建；结构">construction of the Gotha Canal was an undertaking of great

magnitude and difficulty, similar in many respects to the
Caledonian Canal, though much more extensive. The length of

artificial canal was 55 miles, and of the whole navigation,
including the lakes, 120 miles. The locks are 120 feet long and

24 feet broad; the width of the canal at bottom being 42 feet,
and the depth of water 10 feet. The results, so far as the engineer

was concerned, were much more satisfactory than in the case of the
Caledonian Canal. While in the one case he had much obloquy to

suffer for the services he had given, in the other he was honoured
and feted as a public benefactor, the King conferring upon him the

Swedish order of knighthood, and presenting him with his portrait
set in diamonds.

Among the various canals throughout England which Mr. Telford was
employed to construct or improve, down to the commencement of the

railway era, were the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, in 1818; the
Grand Trunk Canal, in 1822; the Harecastle Tunnel, which he

constructed anew, in 1824-7; the Birmingham Canal, in 1824; and the
Macclesfield, and Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canals, in 1825.

The Gloucester and Berkeley Canal Company had been unable to
finish their works, begun some thirty years before; but with the

assistance of a loan of 160,000L. from the Exchequer Bill Loan
Commissioners, they were enabled to proceed with the completion of

their undertaking. A capacious canal was cut from Gloucester to
Sharpness Point, about eight miles down the Severn, which had the

effect of greatly improving the convenience of the port of
Gloucester; and by means of this navigation, ships of large burden

can now avoid the circuitous and difficult passage of the higher
part of the river, very much to the advantage of the trade of the

place.
The formation of a new tunnel through Harecastle Hill, for the

better accommodation of the boats passing along the Grand Trunk
Canal, was a formidable work. The original tunnel, it will be