Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/26

4

The chief article of conveyance on this canal is granite, great quantities of which are annually exported from the quarries on its banks to London and other parts of the country, by means of its communication with the harbour of Aberdeen, for the improvement of which Mr. Smeaton, and afterwards Mr. Telford, made surveys, preparatory to applications to parliament for powers to execute the same. Acts were accordingly passed in the 13th, 35th, 37th, and 50th of George III. and the harbour is now capable of receiving ships of from 18 to 20 feet draught, adding thereby considerably to the facilities of shipment and consequently increasing the traffic on the canal which opens into it. 

THE Adur River rises about four miles from Horsham, in Sussex, at a distance of thirty-six miles from the Metropolis, and takes a south-easterly course by West Grinstead, and the Baybridge Canal, to Binesbridge, to which place it was rendered navigable for barges drawing 4 feet water, by an act, entitled, 'An Act for improving the Navigation of a certain part of the River Adur, and for the better draining the Lowlands lying in the Levels above Beeding-bridge, and below Mock-bridge and Bines-bridge, all in the county of Sussex.' 

From the Baybridge Canal, at Binesbridge, the river takes a southerly course, passing about a mile to the east of the town of Steyning, from thence to New Shoreham; when, passing to the south of the town, it takes an easterly course running parallel with