Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/333

 parts of the line; that for the southern summit is near Wendover; and there are three others near Tring and Miswell, the last of which is arched over to the length of a quarter of a mile. The northern summit's feeder is from Watford, near Daventry; and this level has also its banks considerably raised for the purpose of accumulating extra water during wet weather. The water let down from this summit by lockage is again pumped up out of the level of the Oxford Canal by a powerful steam engine. The water out of the Wilston Reservoir is also pumped into the Wendover Branch of the southern level by an engine erected in 1803; and a little below Two-Waters, in the Colne Valley, the lockage: water of four locks there is returned by another engine. A great saving of water is also effected on the north and south sides of the Tring Summit Level, by the addition of side-ponds to the locks, and there are many considerable tumbling bays or weirs throughout the line, the most remarkable of which are near Great Berkhampstead, Uxbridge, and the passage of the Tove or Towcester River; the necessity for which has been occasioned by the peculiar direction of the line, which, as we have before stated, passes through an immense number of mill-ponds: besides these, there are over-falls, stop-gates and trunks, culverts and bridges, in great numbers. The navigation of this canal is used by barges, square at head and stern, and having flat bottoms, of sixty tons burthen, and smaller vessels of twenty-five tons burthen, with sharp heads and sterns. The canal was opened from its junction with the Oxford Canal to the embankment at Weedon Beck, in 1796, and, before the end of 1797, extended to the tunnel at Blisworth; a communication between Two-Waters and the Thames was effected in 1798; in the ensuing year the canal was completed as far as Bulbourne, together with the Wendover Branch; in 1800 the canal, commencing at the Thames, had reached the south end of the projected tunnel at Blisworth; and, till this was completed, a communication between this part and the one from the Oxford Canal, which, as is seen above, was opened as far as the north end of the same tunnel, was made by a temporary railroad three miles and upwards in length, over Blisworth Hill. In 1801 the Buckingham Branch was completed, and the whole of this magnificent line opened in 1805, when the Blisworth Tunnel was finished.