1 thereby occasion a current, the adjoining gates will rise by that motion only, and prevent any other part of the water from escaping than what is near the breach between the two gates. The success with which the duke of Bridgewater's undertakings were crowned, encouraged a number of gentlemen and manufacturers, in Staffordshire, to revive the idea of a canal navigation through that county, for the advancement of the landed interest and the benefit of trade, in conveying to market, at a cheaper rate, the products and manufactures of the interior parts of the kingdom. This plan was patronized, and generously supported, by lord Gower and Mr. Anson; and it met with the concurrence of many persons of rank, fortune, and influence in the neighbouring counties. Mr. Brindley was, therefore, engaged to make a survey from the Trent to the Mersey; and, upon his reporting that it was practicable to construct a canal, from one of these rivers to the other, and thereby to unite the ports of Liverpool and Hull, a subscription for carrying it into execution was set on foot in 1765, and an act of parliament was obtained in the same year. In 1766, this canal, called, by the proprietors, "The Canal from the Trent to the Mersey," but more emphatically, by the engineer, the Grand Trunk Navigation, on account of the numerous branches which, he justly supposed, would be extended every way from it, was begun; and, under his direction, it was conducted, with great spirit and success, as long as he lived. Mr. Brindley's life not being continued to the completion of this important and arduous undertaking, he left it to be finished by his brother-in-law, Mr. Henshall, who put the last hand to it, in May 1777, being somewhat less than eleven years after its commencement. We need not say, that the final execution of the Grand Trunk Navigation gave the highest satisfaction to the proprietors, and excited a general joy in a populous country, the inhabitants of which already receive every advantage they could wish from so truly noble an enterprize. This canal is ninety-three miles in length; and, besides a large number of bridges over it, has seventy-six locks and five tunnels. The most remarkable of the tunnels is the subterraneous passage of Harecastle, being 2880 yards in length, and more then seventy yards below the surface of the earth. The scheme of this inland navigation had employed the thoughts of the inge nious part of the kingdom for upwards of twenty years before, and some surveys had been made. But Harecastle hill, through which the tunnel is constructed, could neither be avoided nor overcome by any expedient the ablest engineers could devise. It was Mr. Brindley alone who surmounted this and other difficulties, arising from the variety of measures, strata, and quick-sands, which none but himself would have attempted. Soon after the navigation from the Trent to the Mersey was undertaken, application was made to parliament, by the gentlemen of Staffordshire and Worcestershire, for leave to construct a canal from the Grand Trunk, near Haywood in Staffordshire, to the river Severn, near Bewdley. The act being obtained, the design was executed by our great engineer, and hereby the port of Bristol was added to the two before united ports of Liverpool and Hull. This canal, which is about forty-six miles in length, was completed in 1772. Mr. Brindley's next undertaking was the survey and execution of a canal from Birmingham, to unite with the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal near Wolverhampton. This navigation, which was finished in about three years, is twenty-six miles in length. As, by the means of it, vast quantities of coals are conveyed to the river Severn, as well as to Birmingham, where there must be a peculiar demand for them, extraordinary advantages have hence accrued to manufactures and commerce. Our engineer advised the proprietors of the last mentioned navigation, in order to avoid the inconvenience of locks, and to supply the canal more effectually with water, to have a tunnel at Smethwick. This would have rendered it a complete work. But his advice was rejected, and, to supply the deficiency, the managers have lately erected two of Messrs. Watts and Boulton's steam-engines. The canal from Droitwich to the river Severn, for the conveyance of salt and coals, was likewise executed by Mr. Brindley. By him, also, the Coventry navigation was planned, and it was a short time under his direction. But a dispute arising concerning the mode of execution, he resigned his office; which, it is imagined, the proprietors of that undertaking have since had cause to lament. Some little time before his death, Mr. Brindley began the Oxfordshire canal. This unites with the Coventry canal, and forms a continuation of the Grand Trunk Navigation to Oxford, and thence by the Thames to London. The canal from Chesterfield to the river Trent at Stockwith, was the last public undertaking in which Mr. Brindley engaged. He surveyed and planned the whole, and executed some miles of the navigation, which was succesfully finished by Mr. Henshall, in 1777. There were few works of this nature projected, in any part of the kingdom, in which our engineer was not consulted. He was employed, in particular, by the City of London, to survey a course for a canal from Sunning, near Reading in Berkshire, to Monkey island, near Maidenhead. But when application was made to parliament, for leave to effect the design, the bill met with such a violent opposition from the land-owners, that it was defeated. Mr. Brindley had, for some time, the direction of the Calder navigation; but he declined a farther inspection of it, on account of a difference in opinion among the commissioners. In the year 1766, he laid out a canal from the river Calder, at Cooper's bridge, to Huddersfield in Yorkshire, which hath since been carried into execution. In 1768, he revised the plan for the inland navigation from Leeds to Liverpool. He was, likewise, at the first general meeting of the proprietors after the act of parliament had been obtained, appointed the engineer for conducting the work: but the multiplicity of his other engagements obliged him to decline this employment. In the same year, he planned a canal from Stockton, by Darlington, to Winston in the bishopric of Durham. Three plans, of the like kind, were formed by him in 1769; one from Leeds to Selby; another from the Bristol channel, near Uphill in Somersetshire, to Glastonbury, Taunton, Wellington, Tiverton, and Exeter; and a third from Langport, in the county of Somerset, by way of Ilminster, Chard, and Axminster, to the South channel, at Axmouth, in the county of Devon. In 1770, he surveyed the country, for a canal from Andover, by way of Stockbridge and Rumsey, to Redbridge, near Southampton; and, in 1771, from Salisbury, by Fordingbridge and Ringwood, to Christchurch. He performed the like office, in 1772, for a navigation of the same kind, proposed to be carried on from Preston to Lancaster, and from thence to Kendal, in Westmoreland. He surveyed, likewise, and planned out a canal, to join that of the duke of Bridgewater's at Runcorn, from Liverpool. If this scheme had been executed, it was Mr. Brindley's intention to have constructed the work, by an aque duct over the river Mersey, at a place where the tide flows fourteen feet in height. He also surveyed the county of Chester, for a canal from the Grand Trunk to the city of Chester. The plan for joining the Forth and the Clyde was revised by him; and he proposed some considerable alterations, particularly with regard to the deepening of the Clyde, which have been attended to by the managers. He was consulted upon several improvements with respect to the draining of the low lands, in different parts of Lincolnshire and the Isle of Ely. A canal was, likewise, laid out by him, for uniting that of Chesterfield, by the way of Derby, with the Grand Trunk at Swarkstone. To the corporation of Liverpool, he gave a plan for cleansing their docks of mud. This hath been put into execution with the desired effect: and he pointed out, also, the method, which has been attended with equal success, of building walls against the sea without mortar. The last of our great mechanic's ingenious and uncommon contrivances, that we shall mention, is his improvement of the machine for drawing water out of mines, by a losing and a gaining bucket. This he afterwards employed, to advantage, in raising up coals from the mines. When any extraordinary difficulty occurred to Mr. Brindley, in the execution of his works, having little or no assistance from books, or the labours of other men, his resources lay within himself. In order, therefore, to be quiet and uninterrupted, whilst he was in search of the necessary expedients, he generally retired to his bed; and he has been known to lie there one, two, or three days, till he had attained the object in view. He then would get up, and execute his design without any drawing or model. Indeed, it never was his custom to make either, unless he was obliged to do it to satisfy his employers. His memory was so remarkable, that he has often declared that he could remember, and execute, all the parts of the most complex machine, provided he had time, in his survey of it, to settle in his mind the several departments, and their relations to each other. His method of calculating the powers of any machine invented by him, was peculiar to himself. He worked the question for some time in his head, and then put down the results in figures. After this, taking it up again in that stage, he worked it farther in his mind, for a certain time, and set down the results as before. In the same way he still proceeded, making use of figures only at stated periods of the question. Yet the ultimate result was generally true, though the road he travelled in search of it was unknown to all but himself; and, perhaps, it would not have been in his power to have shewn it to another. The attention which was paid by Mr. Brindley to objects of peculiar magnitude did not permit him to indulge himself in the common diversions of life. Indeed, he had not the least relish for the amusements to which mankind, in general, are so much devoted. He never seemed in his element, if he was not either planning or executing some great work, or conversing with his friends upon subjects of importance. He was once prevailed upon, when in London, to see a play. Having never been at an entertainment of this kind before, it had a powerful effect upon him, and he complained, for several days afterward, that it had disturbed his ideas, and rendered him unfit for business. He declared, therefore, that he would not go to another play upon any account. It might, however, have contributed to the longer duration of Mr. Brindley's life, and consequently to the farther benefit of the public, if he could have occasionally relaxed the tone of his mind. His not being able to do so, might not solely arise from the vigour of his genius, always bent upon capital designs; but be, in part, the result of that total want of education, which, while it might add strength to his powers in the particular way in which they were exerted, precluded him, at the same time, from those agreeable reliefs that are administered by miscellaneous reading, and a taste in the polite and elegant arts. The only fault he was observed to fall into, was his suffering himself to be prevailed upon to engage in more concerns than could be completely attended to by any single man, how eminent soever might be his abilities and diligence. It is apprehended that, by this means, Mr. Brindley shortened his days, and, in a certain degree, abridged his usefulness. There is, at least, the utmost reason to believe, that his intense application, in general, to the important undertakings he had in hand, brought on a hectic fever, which continued upon him, with little or no intermission, for some years, and at length terminated his life. He died, at Turnhurst, in Staffordshire, on the 30th of September, 1772, in the 56th year of his age, and was buried at New chapel in the same county, where an altar-tomb has been erected to his |