HISTORY OF

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and in 1 784 the proprietor of the adjoining lands put himself to the ex>pence of a second cut, by which the Carron river is now totally avoided.

It is a mile in length, and navigable for vessels of large burthen. Had

this cut been made at hrst, there would have been no rivalship from. Bor-

rowstounness ; but the whole business has been a series of blunders and

unnecessary expence, in which the public-spirited proprietors are equally •

involved with those whose selfish views have proved so detrimental to the

whole design in all its stages. The money expended, down to 1783,

amounts to 212,020!. No dividend has yet been made, or can be made,

until the debts shall be discharged ; when it may be supposed that the total

expenditure will be increased to 220,000!. or 1 i,oool. per annum, while

the tonnage, one year with another, does not amount to 7,000!. About

six miles, and those of the most difficult in the whole tract, remained to be -

finished in 1784 ; for which government has allowed 30,000!. from

the forfeited estates. If to this sum we add the Borrowstounness expert

diture, and the two subsequent cuts at the mouth of the Carron, this canal

will cost 300,0001. or upwards, previous to the first dividend ; while at

the same time, the tonnage is rated so high, that vessels carrying bulky

goods sometimes prefer the long passage by the Pentland frith.

The dimensions of this canal, though greatly contracted from theoriginal design, are much superior to any work of the same nature in '

South Britain. The English canals are generally from three to five feetdeep, and from twenty to forty feet wide, and the lock-gates from tento twelve feet ; hut they answer the purpose of inland carriage fromone town to another, for which alone they were designed. The depthof the canal, between the Forth and Clyde, is seven feet; its breadth,, atthe surface, sifty-six feet : the locks are seventy-sive feet long, and theirgates twenty feet wide. It is raised, from the Carron, by twenty locksin a tract of ten miles, to the amazing height of one hundred and sifty-sive feet above the medium full sea-mark. At the twentieth lock beginsthe canal of partition, on the summit between the east and west seas ;which canal of partition continues eighteen miles on a level, terminating4 at