Thames Meuse Kiel

THAMES; MEUSE; KIEL, etc.

Early History of

Probably the first canals were made for irrigation, but in very early times they came also to be used for navigation, as in Assyria and Egypt. The Romans structed various works of the kind; Charlemagne projected a system of waterways ing the Main and the Rhine with the Danube; while in China the Grand Canal, joining the Pei-ho and Yang-tse-Kiang and constructed in the 13th century, formed an important artery of commerce, serving also for irrigation. But although it appears from Marco Polo that inclines were used on the Grand Canal, these early waterways were for the most part only practicable between points that lay on nearly the same level, no method being known of conveniently transferring boats from one level to another ; and inland navigation could not become generally useful until this defect had been remedied by the employment of locks.

Doubts exist as to the person, and even the nation, that first introduced locks. Some writers attribute their invention to the Dutch, holding that nearly a century earlier than in Italy locks were used in Holland, where canals are very numerous owing to the favourable physical conditions. On the other hand, the con trivance has been claimed for engineers of the Italian school, and it is said that two brothers Domenico of Viterbo constructed a lock chamber enclosed by a pair of gates in 1481, and that in 1487 Leonardo da Vinci completed six locks uniting the canals of Milan. In any case the introduction of locks in the i4th or 15th century gave a new character to inland navigation.

The Languedoc canal (canal du Midi), which connects the Bay of Biscay with the Mediterranean, may be regarded as the pioneer of the canals of modern Europe. It has 119 locks in a length of 148 miles and rises to an elevation of 62oft. above sea-level, its depth being about 61 feet. It was designed by Baron Paul Riquet de Bonrepos (1604-8o) and was finished in 1681. With it, and the still earlier Briare canal (1604-42), France began that policy of canal construction which has provided her with over 3,00o miles of canals, in addition to over 4,600 miles of navigable rivers. In Russia Peter the Great undertook the construction of a system of canals about the beginning of the i8th century, and in Sweden a canal with locks, connecting Eskilstuna with Lake Malaren, was finished in 16o6. In England the oldest artificial canal is the Foss Dyke, a relic of the Roman occupation. It extends from Lincoln to the river Trent near Torksey (I mi.), and formed a continuation of the Caer Dyke, also of Roman origin but now filled up, which ran from Lincoln to Peterborough (4om.) . Cam den in his Britannia says that the Foss Dyke was deepened and to some extent rendered navigable in I Little, however, was done in making canals in Great Britain until the middle of the i8th century, though before that date some progress had been made in rendering some of the larger rivers navigable. In 1759 the duke of Bridgewater obtained powers to construct a canal between Man chester and his collieries at Worsley. This work, of which James Brindley was the engineer, was opened for traffic in 1761, and there followed a period of great activity in canal construction, which, however, came to an end with the introduction of railways. In the United States the first canal was made in 1792-96 at South Hadley, Mass., and canal building was carried on with great activity from the beginning of the 19th century until about 1837, when the advent of railways checked their development. Out of a total of over 4,500 miles of canals built, mostly in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, 2,444 miles were out of use or abandoned in 1911.

The canals made in the early days of canal-construction were mostly of the class known as barge or boat canals and, owing to their limited depth and breadth, were only available for vessels of small size. But with the growth of commerce the advantage was seen of cutting canals of such dimensions as would enable them to accommodate sea-going ships. Such ship canals are referred to in the last section of this article.