A canal forming a junction between the rivers Forth and Clyde, was begun in 1768, and finished in 1790, when, on the 28th of July, a hogshead of the water of the Forth was poured into the Clyde as a symbol of their junction. This canal in its dimensions is much superior to any work of the same nature in England. It is thirty-five miles in length, in the course of which navigation the vessels are raised, by means of twenty locks, to the height of 155 feet above the level of the sea; proceeding afterwards on the summit of the country for eighteen miles, it then descends by nineteen other locks into the Clyde. It is carried over thirty-six rivers and rivulets, and two great roads, by thirty-eight aqueducts of hewn stone. By one of these, 400 feet in length, it passes the Kelvin, near Glasgow, at the height of 70 feet above the bed of the river in the valley below. It crosses the great road from Edinburgh to Glasgow by a fine aqueduct bridge, and is carried over the water of Logie by another aqueduct bridge, the arch of which is ninety feet broad. The great utility of this communication between the eastern and western seas to the trade of Great Britain and Ireland must be evident from the consideration that it shortens the distance between them by the shortest passage, that of the Pentland Firth, nearly 600 miles.

We have already entered so fully into the local history of canals in this country that our limits will permit but a brief notice of the great northern canal which unites the eastern and western oceans by Inverness and Fort-William. In 1773 Mr. Watt was appointed by the trustees for certain forfeited estates in Scotland, to make a survey of the central highlands. Mr. Watt, in his report to that public body, recommended, amongst other improvements for the highlands, the formation of the Crinan Canal, which has long since been executed, and also of the Caledonian Canal, from Inverness to FortWilliam.

In the Parliamentary Reports the Caledonian Canal is generally laid out in three districts, viz. the Clachnaharry or eastern district, comprehending the works from Loch Beauly to Fort-Augustus; the middle district, extending to the west end of Loch Lochy; and the Corpach or western district, from Loch Lochy to Loch Eil, or the western sea. With regard to the middle district, we observe that hitherto the sum annually allowed for this work does not admit of every part being carried on with equal vigor. The works of this compartment have, therefore, been almost wholly confined to excavating the ground;

it being of importance to have the eastern end opened to Loch Ness, and the western division to Loch Lochy, before much was done to the masonry of the central parts; in order to facilitate the transport of materials from the respective seas. This is now accomplished.

The extent of the navigation comprehended in the middle district is about twelve miles. The whole height, from the Beauly Firth or the east sea to Loch ich, the summit level of the canal, is stated at about ninety-four feet; and, as fiftythree feet of this has been overcome in rising to Lock Ness, it appears that about forty-one feet will form the rise of the lockage of the middle district, while the fall on the western side to Loch Eil is only ninety feet. This is to be overcome by a chain of four locks at Fort-Augustus, and one at Callachie, nearly three miles westward, independently of the regulating lock within half a mile of Loch Oich. The lock at Callachie is curiously situate, being founded and built upon a dike or stratum of rock, called Grey Wacke by mineralogists, which runs across the moor, and is indeed the only piece of rock on this part of the line of the canal. It is just large enough for the site of the lock, and was preferred to a gravel as a foundation. This rock being very compact, it rendered an inverted arch for the lock unnecessary.

From Loch Lochy to Loch Eil the distance is about eight miles, on which the canal works may now be considered as finished, having kept pace with those of the eastern district. The works of this compartment, both in regard to masonry, excavation, and embankment, have been more expensive than those of the eastern division; in particular, the deep cutting at Moy, Strone, and Muirshearlich, and excavating the sites of the locks and basin for shipping at Corpach in rock. But, perhaps, if all the expense of the foundations and earth work on the Beanly Firth are taken into account, they may he found to have been as expensive, if not more so, than the blasting of rocks on the Corpach district.

In our progress towards the western sea-lock of Loch Eil, after passing through the aqueduct of the Lower Banavieburn, we reach the famous chain or suite consisting of eight locks, not unaptly termed 'Neptune's Staircase.' This majestic chain of locks was finished, excepting the gates, in 1811. The cost of these locks may be stated at about £50,000. They occupy a range of 500 yards, and rise altogether about sixty feet perpendicular. The common void or cavity of the lock-chambers is forty feet in width, and the depth twenty feet; the bottom, forming an inverted arch, gives the whole a very grand appearance, presenting the greatest mass of masonry any where to be found, as applicable to the purposes of a canal. After passing this interesting part of the work, the canal gets easily along Corpach Moss (to the House of Corpach, the former seat of the Camerons of Loch Eil). Here a doubled lock is situate, connected with a basin for shipping, measuring 250 yards in length by 100 yards in breadth, which joins the sea lock, and so communicates with the Western Ocean by two mounds projecting about

350 yards into Loch Eil, and completing the inland navigation of the Caledonian Canal from

sea to sea.

It appears, from the the first report of the commissioners for making the Caledonian Canal, that the sum of £6052 10s. 103d. had been expended in the preparatory measures for this great undertaking. In the session of parliament, 1801, another act was passed, entitled 'An Act for making further Provision for making and maintaining an Inland Navigation, commonly called the Caledonian Canal, from the eastern to the western Sea, by Inverness and Fort William in Scotland.' By this additional act a further provision of £50,000 was made for this undertaking. In the month of June,1804, the commissioners resolved that Mr. Jessop should again visit the line of the intended navigation in concert with Mr. Telford, that they might jointly inspect the progress of the works already commenced, and re-examine all the particulars of the former survey; that they might determine the position of each lock on the whole line of the canal, and, as far as possible, fix the situation, dimensions, and construction of the bridges, culverts, and other necessary works; and that they might take into consideration the manner in which it would be most convenient to connect the line of the canal with the several lochs or lakes forming part of the intended navigation; and also fix and arrange the price of labor, and the mode in which the several works would be most advantageously let or contracted for.

During the year 1803 the operations were merely of a preparatory nature, and the number of workmen did not exceed 150. But in the year following they were increased to upwards of 900, when it became necessary to appoint resident engineers, particularly at the extremities of the line, to which the first works were entirely confined. For this highly important charge Mr. Matthew Davidson, who had acquired much experience at the works upon the Elsemere Canal, particularly at the great aqueduct of Pontycycelte in Denbighshire, was appointed to the eastern division, and Mr. John Telford took charge at the western end.

The Grand Canal, in Ireland, was commenced soon after the year 1753. The general direction of this canal is nearly west, for sixty-one miles and a half, through Dublin, Kildare, and King's Counties: it passes a low part of the grand ridge of Ireland, on the Bog of Allen. Its objects are, the supply of Dublin with coals, &c.; the varied produce of the banks of the Shannon; and opening an inland communication through the country. It commences ir a grand basin in Deblin (which connects with the Liffey River and the new docks), and terminates in the Sharnon River at Tarmonbury, near Moy's Town; it has collateral branches to the Boyne River at Edenderry, to the Barrow River at Monestraven, and also at Portarlington; there are also branches to Naastown and to Johnstown. This canal is five feet deep; the locks are eighty feet long and sixteen wide in the clear, and are built of hewn stone. In the year 1770 this canal had proceeded from Dublin into the Bog of Allen, when,

owing to mismanagement, it stood still for several years; and it was not until the beginning of 1804 that the whole line was finished and opened. The sums of the public money which have been granted by the parliaments to aid this work are immense; between 1753 and 1771 they amounted to £78,231.

The French at present have many fine canals: that of Briare was begun under Henry IV., and finished under the direction of cardinal Richelieu in the reign of Louis XIII. This canal makes a communication betwixt the Loire and the Seine by the river Loing. It extends eleven French great leagues from Briare to Montargis. It enters the Loire a little above Briare, and terminates in the Loing at Cepoi. There are forty-two locks on this canal.

The canal of Orleans, for making another communication between the Seine and the Loire, was begun in 1675, and finished by Philip of Orleans, regent of France, during the minority of Louis XV., and is furnished with twenty locks. It goes by the name of the Canal of Orleans; but it begins at the village of Combleux, which is a short French league from the town of Orleans.

But the greatest and most useful work of this kind is the junction of the ocean with the Mediterranean by the canal of Languedoc. It was proposed in the reigns of Francis I. and Henry IV., and was undertaken and finished under Louis XIV. It begins with a large reservoir 4000 paces in circumference, and twentyfour feet deep, which receives many springs from the mountain Noire. This canal is about sixty-four leagues in length, is supplied by a number of rivulets, and is furnished with 104 locks, of about eight feet rise each. In some places it passes over bridges of vast height; and in others it cuts through solid rocks for 1000 paces. At one end it joins the river Garonne near Tholouse, and terminates at the other in the lake Tau, which extends to the port of Cette, It was planned by Francis Riquet in 1666, and finished before his death, which happened in 1680.

Of the canal of Languedoc, M. Say remarks in one of his recent works, that it cost £1,250,000 sterling, and that its annual returns at present do not exceed £15,000; that is, less than 1 per cent. on the capital expended.

In the Dutch, Austrian, and French Netherlands, there is a very great number of canals; that from Bruges to Ostend carries vessels of 200 tons.

The Chinese have also a great number of canals; that which runs from Canton to Pekin extends about 825 miles in length, and was executed about 800 years ago.

In Spain the canal at Zaragoza begins at Segovia sixteen leagues north of Madrid, and is separated from the southern canal by the chain of mountains at Guadazama. From Segovia, quitting the Eresma, it crosses the Pisuerga near Valladolid, at the junction of that river with the Ducro; then leaving Palencia, with the Carrion to the right, till it has crossed the river below Herrera, it approaches once more the

Pisuerga; and near Herrera, twelve leagues of Reinosa, there is a fall of 1000 Spanish feet. At Reinosa is the communication with the canal of Arragon, which unites the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay; and from Reinosa to the Suanzes, which is three leagues, there is a fall of 3000 feet. Above Palencia is a branch going westward, through Beceril de Campos, Rio Seco, and Benevente, to Zamora, making this canal of Castille, in its whole extent, 140 leagues.

The Holstein Canal, which joins the Baltic to the German Ocean, is a most important national work. The idea of this junction was conceived under Frederick IV., duke of Schleswig Holstein, but was not undertaken till the Russian government agreed to co-operate in promoting its success. It was begun in the spring of the year 1777, and was carried on by contractors, who engaged, for a certain yearly sum, to complete a certain portion of it. This canal, the whole length of which, from Kieler-Ford to Rendsburg, is equal to 10,650 poles of sixteen feet each, proceeds on a level with the Baltic to the first lock at Holtenach, where it rises eight feet six inches. It then proceeds to the second lock at Knop, 745 poles distant from KielerFord, which has a rise of eight feet six inches, and then continues to near Suensdorf, where the third lock is situated, having a rise of the same height. Here the upper canal begins, and proceeds for the distance of 2413 poles, between Schwartenbec and Wittenbec to the fourth lock at the Upper Eyder, near Schinkel. This upper canal, which serves as a reservoir, has an influx of water from the neighbouring lakes sufficient for the purposes of navigation, and is twenty-five feet six inches higher than the level of the Baltic. At the fourth lock the canal falls seven feet four inches two lines; proceeds 1438 poles in the Eyder to the fifth lock at Nedderholten, where there is also a fall of the same height; and, having continued by Seestede to Steinwarp, 2901 poles, little more art is employed, because the Eyder between that place and Rendsburg has almost naturally the sufficient depth and breadth. A sixth lock is constructed at Rendsburg, as the tide flows up there in the Eyder, and makes, with the ebb, a difference of one foot seven inches. The breadth of this canal at the bottom is fifty-four feet, and at the surface of the water ninety feet. It is nine feet deep, and navigable for ships of from 150 to 160 tons burden. The locks, therefore, between the gates are 100 feet in length and twenty-seven feet in breadth. Along the banks there is a path ten feet broad, and another of twelve feet for the horses which are employed to draw the vessels.

Inland navigation has not been entirely unattended to in Sweden. The canal of Trolhaetta has been worked with great labor, assisted by the powerful force of gunpowder, through the midst of rocks. The object was to open a communication between the North Sea and the Lake Wenner by forming a new channel where the Gotha is rendered unnavigable by cataracts. The length of this canal, in which there are nine locks, is nearly three miles, the width thirty-six feet, and

'It is not

the depth in some places above fifty. easy,' says a late judicious traveller, 'for any one to form any idea of the difficulties that were to be surmounted in the formation of this wonderful canal, unless he were an eye-witness. It was undertaken and begun by Charles XII.; formed part of a grand plan meditated by Gustavus Vasa, and attempted by some of his successors, for joining the Baltic from the North Sea, by means of a communication cut through the kingdom. If a canal should be extended by the Lake of Wenner, by Oerebo, to the Lake of Hielmar, the Swedes may then, by a conjunction of this lake with that of Maelar, through the sluices of Arboga, transport all kinds of merchandise in the same vessel from Gothenburg to Stockholm. Thus a passage would be opened between the North Sea and the Baltic; and, among other advantages, the duties of the Sound would be avoided. The canal of Trolhaetta may justly be considered as, in some respects, characteristical of the Swedish nation, for it represents them as they are, prone to the conception of grand enterprises, and distinguished by mechanical invention.

The Great American Canal was begun in 1817, and is the longest canal in existence, and though upon a small scale, as to breadth and depth, is, we believe, in point of pecuniary outlay, the greatest work of the kind ever executed. It is 335 miles in length, forty feet wide at the surface of the water, twenty-eight at the bottom, and four feet deep, and will cost about five millions of dollars (£1,100,000), or £3,000 per mile on an average. Such a vast undertaking, completed in the short period of seven years, by a state (New York) with 1,368,000 inhabitants, affords a striking proof of the energy and enterprise generated by free institutions. It is a work worth a thousand Escurials and Versailleses, because it creates wealth, while these only consume it; and it is a monument of public spirit and national prosperity, while these are only monuments of idle magnificence, vain glory, and despotic oppression.

The canal, which extends from Black Rock, at the east end of Lake Erie, to Albany on the Hudson, will render their river the chief, almost the sole outlet, and New York the great emporium of a fertile country extending along the lakes, much larger than the British Isles, and fast filling with inhabitants. Proceeding eastward from Lake Erie the canal rises forty-eight feet, and from the summit level falls 601 feet to the Hudson, making an aggregate rise and fall of 649 feet, which is effected by seventy-seven locks. Two levels or reaches extend over sixtyfive and seventy miles without lockage, a circumstance, perhaps, without a parallel, except in China. The stimulus it gives to improvement is already seen in the villages and towns which are springing up with astonishing rapidity along its whole course. Passage-boats and batteaux already ply on the canal. The former, which are generally of a size to carry ninety passengers, travel at the rate of 100 miles in twenty-four hours, and the charge is but three half-pence or two pence per mile.

In thyself dwell;

In any where: continuance maketh, hell.

Donne. Clergymen must not keep a tavern, nor a judge be an innkeeper. Taylor's Rule of Holy Living. How all this is but a fair inn, Of fairer guests, which dwell within.

Sidney. Like pilgrims to the appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end. Dryden. One may learn more here in one day, than in a year's rambling from one inn to another. Locke. Mow clover or rye-grass, and make it fit to inn.

Mortimer.

:

INNS are licensed and regulated by justices of the peace, who oblige the landlord to enter into recognisances for keeping good order. If a person who keeps a common inn refuses to receive a traveller into his house as a guest, or to find him victuals and lodging on his tendering a reasonable price for them, he is liable to an action of damages, and may be indicted and fined at the king's suit. The rates of all commodities sold by inn-keepers,' says Blackstone, 'according to our ancient laws, may be assessed; and inn-keepers not selling their hay, oats, beans, &c., and all manner of victuals, at reasonable prices, without taking any thing for litter, may be fined and imprisoned, &c., by 21 Jac. I. c. 21. Where an inn-keeper harbours thieves, persons of infamous character, or suffers any disorders in his house, or sets up a new inn, where there is no need of one, to the hindrance of ancient and well-governed inns, he is indictable and finable and, by statute, such inn may be suppressed. Action upon the case lies against an inn-keeper, if a theft he committed on his guest by a servant of the inn, or any other person not belonging to the guest; though it is otherwise where the guest is not a traveller, but one of the same town or village, for there the inn-keeper is not chargeable; nor is the master of a private tavern answerable for a robbery committed on his guest it is said that even though the travelling guest does not deliver his goods, &c., into the inn-keeper's possession, yet, if they are stolen, he is chargeable. An inn-keeper is not answerable for any thing out of his inn, but only for such as are within it; yet where he, of his own accord, puts the guest's horse to grass, and he horse is stolen, he is answerable, he not having the guest's orders for putting such horse to grass. The inn-keeper may justify the stopping of the horse, or any thing of his guest, for his reckoning, and may retain the same till it be paid. Where a person brings his horse to an inn, and leaves him in the stable, the inn-keeper may detain him till such time as the owner pays for his keeping; and, if the horse eats out as much as he is worth, after a reasonable appraisement mads, he may sell the horse and pay himself; but when a guest brings several horses to an inn, and afterwards takes them all away except one, this horse so left

may not be sold for payment of the debt for the others; for every horse is to be sold, only to make satisfaction for what is due for his own meat.

INNS also signify colleges of municipal or common law: the old English word for houses of noblemen, bishops, and others of extraordinary note, being of the same signification with the French word hotel.

INNS OF CHANCERY were probably so called because anciently inhabited by such clerks as chiefly studied the forming of writs, which regularly belonged to the cursitors, who are officers of chancery. The first of these is Thavie's Inn, begun in the reign of Edward III., and since purchased by the society of Lincoln's Inn. Besides this, there are New Inn, Symond's Inn, Clement's Inn, Clifford's Inn (anciently the house of lord Clifford), Staple Inn (belonging to the merchants of the staple), Lion's Inn (anciently a common inn with the sign of the lion), Furnival's Inn, and Bernard's Inn, These were formerly preparatory colleges for younger students; and many were entered here before they were admitted into the inns of court. Now they are mostly taken. up by attorneys, solicitors, &c. They all belong to some of the inns of court, who formerly used to send yearly some of their barristers to lead to them.

2.

INNS OF COURT are so called because the students there are to serve and attend the courts of judicature; or because anciently these colleges received none but the sons of noblemen and gentlemen, who were to be qualified to serve the king in his court; as Fortescue affirms. In his time, he says, there were about 2000 students in the inns of court and chancery, all of whom were filii nobilium, or gentlemen born. But this custom has gradually fallen into disuse; so that, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, Sir Edward Coke does not reckon above 1000 students, and the number at present is considerably less; for which judge Blackstone assigns the following reasons: 1. Because the inns of chancery, being now almost totally filled by the inferior branches of the profession, are neither commodious nor proper for the resort of gentlemen of any rank or figure; so that there are very rarely any young students entered at the inns of chancery. Because in the inns of court all sorts of regimen and academical superintendence, either with regard to morals or studies, are found impracticable, and therefore entirely neglected. 3. Because persons of birth and fortune, after having finished their usual courses at the universities, have seldom leisure or resolution sufficient to enter upon a new scheme of study at a new place of instruction; wherefore few gentlemen now resort to the inns of court, but such for whom the knowledge of practice is absolutely necessary, that is, who are intended for the profession. These inns of court, justly famed for the production of men of learning in the law, are governed by masters, principals, benchers, stewards, and other officers; and have public halls for exercises, readings, &c., which the students are obliged to attend and perform for a certain number of years, before they can be admitted to plead at the bar. These societies have not, however, any judicial