Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/266



This act also declares, that unless new shares are created, the consolidated stock of this navigation shall consist of the sum of £475,568, 15s. divided into three thousand five hundred and seventy-five shares, and three quarters of a share of £133 each; and the management is to be under the direction of a committee of twenty-five persons, possessing at least five shares each; and a sub-committee of six for the management of the Wirral Branch of this navigation, extending from Chester to the Mersey.

A fund for repairs may be created to the extent of £20,000, after all debts are paid, by deducting not more than one tenth of the dividends in each year. For the purpose of preventing injury to the navigation of the River Dee, by abstracting water from this river into the collateral cut or feeder at Llantysilio, it is enacted, that the united company shall, from their canal, supply the River Dee, at Chester, with as much water as is taken from it by the feeder, and which shall not have been previously restored to the Dee.

Of the canals and collateral branches authorized to be made, by powers granted under the respective acts of parliament relating to this navigation, the following have not been executed, and as the acts are repealed, they cannot now be done. That part of the original main line from the basin at Chester to the aqueduct at Pont-y-Cysylte being twenty miles in length, with 455 feet of lockage; another portion between Weston Wharf and the Severn at Shrewsbury, which was nine miles and a half in length, with 107 feet of lockage; together with a proposed tunnel at Weston Lullingfield, of four hundred and eighty-seven yards in length. A branch to Holt, of four miles in length; another to the Talwern Collieries; another from Gresford to Allington; and another from Pont-y-Cysylte to the collieries at Acrefair; a branch of seven miles to Prees Heath; and a collateral cut from that part of the main line formerly called the Llanymynech Branch, to the Montgomeryshire Canal, at Portywain Lime Works; and another to Morda Bridge, near Oswestry.

The objects contemplated by the proprietors of these navigations, in their recent application to parliament, are chiefly to enable them to establish a carrying trade from the port of Elles mere, on the banks of the River Mersey, across that river to the