A treatise on the improvement of canal navigation; exhibiting the numerous advantages to be derived from small canals ; and boats of two to five feet ... of the machinery for facilitating con

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1796 Excerpt: ... send articles on the canals that might otherwise be transported by different means. Hence, even by this plan, I see no difficulty in conveying goods into the most distant, and less important, parts of the country j and time, with concurrent circumstances, will no doubt infinitely improve this method. It has been observed, that some difficulty would attend sending goods to distant parts by these boats, as a man could not follow his property, or appoint a person to accompany it, in consequence of passing through such various hands and boatmen j but the fame objection might arise against the sending of game to London; a man might say he could not go with the game to see it delivered: but, what is. much better, agency performs this part of the business, nor do I know any conveyance where property is followed or accompanied by the proprietor. Property is given to the care of others, who are responsible for the delivery into safe hands; letters, for instance, which pass through the various post-offices, are by their size much more liable to miscarriage or mistake, from agency, than a four-ton boat, or goods conveyed by it; yet custom has rendered the transfer of letters perfectly easy and secure, millions of property being conveyed by letters, circulated into the most obscure parts qf-the country ewy week. To To this regularity, I conceive expedition will, in many cases, be added, as before mentioned of the market, passage, and dispatch boats. Many valuable kinds of merchandize will bear some additional expence in carriage; and it may be of more importance to the merchant to have them in market, in a given time, than to save the difference in expence between the flow and the more rapid conveyance. a I will therefore suppose a canal from the great trading town of...