The Encyclopedia of the British Empire, Vol. 2 PDF Download

Author: Charles William Domville-Fife
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781331186229
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 600

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Book Description
Excerpt from The Encyclopedia of the British Empire, Vol. 2: The First Encyclopedic Record of the Greatest Empire in the History of the World Although no mention will be made here of the immense number of small inland canals, for local navigation or irrigation purposes, which exist in various countries of the Empire, there are several highly important systems, largely used by shipping, which call for special description. The canals of the British Isles have a total length of 4,673 miles. This figure, however, includes rivers which have been converted into canals. England and Wales possess 3,641 miles of these waterways, Scotland 184 miles and Ireland 848 miles. No recent statistics are available giving the annual amount of merchandise passing over the system, but it is estimated to be about 60,000,000 tons. A Royal Commission, appointed in 1906, delivered a report in 1909 suggesting a development scheme under an Inland Water Board. Four main systems were advised, which could be developed from the existing canals. These routes were to radiate from a centre in South Staffordshire (present canal system) to (1) the Mersey (Liverpool), (2) the Humber (Hull), (3) the Severn (Gloucester and the Bristol Channel), and (4) the Thames (London). Large sections of these routes already existed, but were to be improved and made available for barges up to 100 tons. A Canal Control Committee was appointed by the Government in 1917, and this board now controls about 1,200 miles of inland waterways. The Railway Executive Committee also administers just over 1,000 miles of these shallow canals. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.