Page:The Canal System of England.djvu/37

 Canal. The control of this through-route system between the Mersey and the Humber, excluding navigation authorities, is in the hands of no less than eight different companies; and a consignment of goods has to traverse ten distinct waterways—the gauges of locks on which range through various grades from 50 feet by 14 feet by 4 feet on Sir John Kamsden's canal to 212 feet by 22 feet by 9 feet on the Aire and Calder.

With such instances as these, it is clearly essential that an effort should be made to arrive at some standard minimum sectional area of canal and lock, height of quay, radius of curve, headway of bridge, &c., which shall be adhered to in future operations, whether in the re-construction of old, or in the laying out of new canals.

But although there has been no general or Government scheme for Canal improvement, yet the enterprise of a few individual Companies, such as the Aire and Calder and Weaver Navigations, has shewn that an up-to-date system will command success. Such success is shewn by the Board of Trade returns for 1890, when these navigations, constituting 114 out of a total of 3,935 miles of English waterways, together carried over 10% of the total freight on English Canals, or 3,750,000 tons out of a total of 34,325,000 tons transported on our Canals. Nor does