The canals which have been commenced and completed in the United Kingdom, since the year 1800, are thirty in number, and extend about 600 miles. Mr. M'Culloch gives a list of British canals, with the numbers of shareholders in the proprietary of each, the amount and cost of shares, and the price on the 27th of June, 1843. The Erewash, with 231 shares, each 1001., returned a divi dend of 401., each share being then worth 0751. The Loughborough, with only seventy 1001. shares, the average cost of each share having been 1421. 17.5., had a dividend of 801., and a selling price per share of 1,4001. The Stroudwater, with two hundred shares of 1501., returned a dividend of with a price in the market of 4901. On the other hand, the 501. shares of the Crinan were then selling at 21. The 501. shares of the North Walsham and Dillon were of the same almost nominal value in the market; and the shares of the Thames and Medway, with an average cost of 341. 4s. 3d. were worth but 11. Of the cost expended in the construction of the canals of England, there is no means of giving a precise account, but the following calculation seems sufficiently accurate. In round numbers, the 2:10,000 shares of the forty principal canals averaged.
an expenditure of 1001. per share, the result would be 25,000,0001., and perhaps we may estimate the canals of the United Kingdom to have cost 35,000,0001., or one-tenth as much as the railways already sanctioned.
In 1846 a canal was opened, under the name of Ludwig's Kanal, from Bamberg to Khleim, in Bavaria. It unites the Rhine with the Danube ; so that a vessel could cross Europe from Rotterdam to the Black Sea ; and in so far it carries out an idea which had been suggested in early times by Char lemagne.
One of the most interesting features at the present time, in respect to canals, is the pro ject for a ship-canal over the isthmus which connects North and South America. A con vention was signed at Washington in April 1850, between the British and United States governments ; by which both governments promise their protection, though no pecuniary support, to a company formed for cutting the Nicaragua ship-canal.
There has also recently been a revival of the very ancient plan for cutting a ship-canal through the isthmus of Suez, to connect the Mediterranean with the Red Sea.