Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/378



By 49 GEO. III. c. 138.
The Kennet and Avon completes a circuit of navigable canals, which traversing the northern, midland, and south-western counties of England, connect together its four largest rivers, viz, the Trent, the Mersey, the Severn, and the Thames. Viewed in this light, it forms an important link in that great chain of inland navigation, which has been rapidly increasing in this kingdom for the last fifty years, and which seems to know no other boundary than what the rugged and mountainous parts of the country naturally present. This canal, by uniting the Rivers Kennet and Avon, the former of which runs into the River Thames at Reading, and the latter into the Severn a few miles below Bristol, becomes, in conjunction with the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the Thames, the central line of communication between the Irish Sea and German Ocean. The line of navigation, which thus joins these two seas, passes through a very fertile and populous district. Upon the banks of it lie not only the metropolis, but a great many large towns and cities, the ordinary intercourse between which must necessarily produce a very extensive traffic; and if we take into consideration