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74 HISTORY OF

The passage Is In some places cut through the solid rock, and Inothers arched over with brick. Air funnels, some of which are thirty-seven yards perpendicular, are cut at certain distances through the rockto the top of the hill. The arch at the entrance is about fix feet wide,and about five feet high above the surface of the water. It widenswithin, so that in some places the boats may pass each other; and atthe pit is ten feet wide. The coals are brought to this passage or canalin little low waggons, that hold nearly a ton each; and as the work ison the descent, are easily pushed or pulled along, by a man on a railedway, to a stage over the canal, and then shot into one of the boats,each of which holds seven or eight tons. They then, by means of therails, are drawn out by one man to the basin at the mouth (a boy ofseventeen years of age has worked twenty-one of these boats at a time,which at seven tons each, the lowest quantity is one hundred forty-seven tons brought out of the pit to the basin at the entrance); then fiveor six of them are linked together, and drawn along the canal by asingle horse, or two mules, on the banks or towing-paths: it is therebroad enough for the barges to pass or go abreast; and in the course ofnine miles (a circuit of two miles being made in seeking a level) the canalreaches Manchester. The canal is carried over public roads by means ofarches; and where not sufficiently high for a carriage to go under, theroad is lowered with a gentle descent, and ascends on the other side: it iscarried over the navigable river Irwell, and nearly forty feet above it;so that large vessels in full fail pass under the canal as under a large loftybridge, whilst the duke’s barges are at the fame time passing over them.

It may be proper here particularly to describe the noble aqueductwhich carries this canal over the river Irwell. This stupendous canalwas begun at a place called Worfley Mill, about seven miles from Man-chester, where, at the foot of a large mountain, which proves to becomposed of coal, the duke has cut a basin capable of containing manyboats, and a great body of water, which serves as a reservoir orhead to his navigation. ‘At Barton-bridge, three miles from the basin,

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