. The mastery of water. arliament toconstruct a canal. The first intention was to carry the canal from Worsley,which lies on high ground to the east of Chat Moss, downto the Irwell by a series of locks, and then up the otherside of the valley in the same way. But when Brindleywas asked to undertake the work he advised the Duketo carry the canal right across the valley on a bridge for this purpose had to be 200 yards longand twelve yards wide, and was far larger than anythingthat had previously been undertaken in this said the scheme was that of a madman, but the THE
. The mastery of water. arliament toconstruct a canal. The first intention was to carry the canal from Worsley,which lies on high ground to the east of Chat Moss, downto the Irwell by a series of locks, and then up the otherside of the valley in the same way. But when Brindleywas asked to undertake the work he advised the Duketo carry the canal right across the valley on a bridge for this purpose had to be 200 yards longand twelve yards wide, and was far larger than anythingthat had previously been undertaken in this said the scheme was that of a madman, but the THE CANALS OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 105 Dake placed confidence in his engineer and the plan wascarried through. The viaduct was built of stone, andhad sixty-three semicircular arches, which carried thecanal over the River IrweU at a height of thirty-nine channel in which the water flowed was made water-tight with puddle —a mixture of clay and water, wellmixed, and applied in several layers until it was about. A BARGE ON A CANAL. three feet thick. It was carried across Stretford Meadowson an embankment 900 yards long, 112 feet wide at thebase, twenty-four feet wide at the top, and aboutseventeen feet high. At the Worsley end, the canal was continued into theworkings through a tunnel in the face of a cliff, so thatthe coal could be loaded directly into barges fromthe. mine. At first it pursued its underground pathonly for about a mUe, but fifty years later it had thrown 8—(927) 106 THE MASTERY OF WATER. out underground channels in all directions, these amount-ing to no less than forty miles. At the Manchester end,the trouble of pulling the carts from the canal level upCastle Hill was so great that Brindley carried the canalinto a tunnel, and then hauled the coal up a shaft bymeans of a water-wheel thirty feet in diameter workedby a waterfall on the River Medlock. But to recount even a fraction of the ingenious contri-vances of this man, who made up in industry andpe
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