Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/104

 Argyle, Earls of Buchan, Home, Roseberry, Hopetoun, and Countess of Hopetoun, and many other distinguished individuals,) were incorporated by the name of "The Company of Proprietors of the Borrowstowness Canal Navigation." They were authorized to raise £5,000, in one hundred shares of £50 each, and a further sum of £3,000, if the former sum should be found insufficient.

The line of canal stretches along the south shore of the Firth of Forth, from the port and harbour of Borrowstowness; it crosses the water of Avon, and thence proceeds to the Forth and Clyde Canal, at Grangemouth, near the mouth of the Carron River. Its length is about seven miles, and level throughout; the depth is 7 feet.

Considerable progress had been made in this canal previous to 1783, and the £8,000 which the company were empowered to raise under the act already recited, was expended, when they were under the necessity of again applying to parliament for a second, entitled,  'An Act to enable the Company of Proprietors of the Borrowstowness navigable Cut or Canal more effectually to complete and maintain the same.'  By this act, the proprietors are empowered to raise among themselves the additional sum of £12,000, to be divided into shares of £50 each, and a further sum of £4,000 should it be deemed necessary; or they may obain [sic] the same by mortgage of the tolls, or by granting annuities on lives.

TONNAGE AND WHARFAGE.
Granted by the Act of 8th George III which have not been altered by the subsequent Act.

EXEMPTION FROM TONNAGE RATES.
Paving-stones, Gravel, and all Materials for the repairing of Roads, (Limestone excepted,) Dung, Marl and all sorts of Manure.

As Borrowstowness is (with the exception of Leith) the principal trading town on the Forth, and where there is depth of water for vessels of three hundred tons, at neap-tides, it was the original intention of the promoters of the Forth and Clyde Canal to termi-