lock or some equivalent device to enable vessels to be transferred from one to another. To avoid unduly heavy earthwork, the reaches must closely follow the bases of hills and the windings of valleys, but from time to time it will become necessary to cross a sudden depression by the aid of an embankment or aqueduct, while a piece of rising ground or a hill may involve a cutting or a tunnel. Brindley took the Bridgewater canal over the Irwell at Barton by means of an aqueduct of three stone arches, the centre one having a span of 63 ft., and T. Telford arranged that the Ellesmere canal should cross the Dee valley at Pont-y-Cysyllte partly by embankment and partly by aqueduct. The embankment was continued till it was 75 ft. above the ground, when it was succeeded by an aqueduct, 1000 ft. long and 127 ft. above the river, consisting of a cast iron trough supported on iron arches with stone piers. Occasionally when a navigable stream has to be crossed, a swing viaduct is necessary to allow shipping to pass. The first was that built by Sir E. Leader Williams to replace Brindley’s aqueduct at Barton, which was only high enough to give room for barges (see Manchester Ship Canal). One of the earliest canal tunnels was made in 1766–1777 by Brindley at Harecastle on the Trent and Mersey canal; it is 2880 yds. long, 12 ft. high and 9 ft. wide, and has no tow-path, the boats being propelled by men lying on their backs and pushing with their feet against the tunnel walls (“leggers”). A second tunnel, parallel to this but 16 ft. high and 14 ft. wide, with a tow-path, was finished by Telford in 1827. Standedge tunnel, on the Huddersfield canal, is over 3 m. long, and is also worked by leggers.
The dimensions of a canal, apart from considerations of water-supply, are regulated by the size of the vessels which are to be used on it. According to J. M. Rankine, the depth of water and sectional area of waterway should be such as not to cause any material increase of the Dimensions. resistance to the motion of the boats beyond what would be encountered in open water, and he gives the following rules as fulfilling these conditions:—
| Least breadth of bottom | = 2 × greatest breadth of boat. |
| Least depth of water | = 112 ft. + greatest draught of boat. |
| Least area of waterway | = 6 × greatest midship section of boat. |
The ordinary inland canal is commonly from 25 to 30 ft. wide at the bottom, which is flat, and from 40 to 50 ft. at the water level, with a depth of 4 or 5 ft., the angle of slope of the sides varying with the nature of the soil. To retain the water in porous ground, and especially on embankments, a strong watertight lining of puddle or tempered clay must be provided on the bed and sides of the channel. Puddle is made of clay which has been finely chopped up with narrow spades, water being supplied until it is in a semi-plastic state. It is used in thin layers, each of which is worked so as to be firmly united with the lower stratum. The full thickness varies from 2 to 3 ft. To prevent the erosion of the sides at the water-line by the wash from the boats, it may be necessary to pitch them with stones or face them with brushwood. In some of the old canals the slopes have been cut away and vertical walls built to retain the towing-paths, with the result of adding materially to the sectional area of the waterway.
A canal cannot be properly worked without a supply of water calculated to last over the driest season of the year. If there be no natural lake available in the district for storage and supply, or if the engineer cannot draw upon some stream of sufficient size, he must form artificial Water supply. reservoirs in suitable situations, and the conditions which must be attended to in selecting the positions of these and in constructing them are the same as those for drinking-water supply, except that the purity of the water is not a matter of moment. They must be situated at such an elevation that the water from them may flow to the summit-level of the canal, and if the expense of pumping is to be avoided, they must command a sufficient catchment area to supply the loss of water from the canal by evaporation from the surface, percolation through the bed, and lockage. If the supply be inadequate, the draught of the boats plying on the canal may have to be reduced in a dry season, and the consequent decrease in the size of their cargoes will both lessen the carrying capacity of the canal and increase the working expenses in relation to the tonnage handled. Again, since the consumption of water in lockage increases both with the size of the locks and the frequency with which they are used, the difficulty of finding a sufficient water supply may put a limit to the density of traffic possible on a canal or may prohibit its locks from being enlarged so as to accommodate boats of the size necessary for the economical handling of the traffic under modern conditions. It may be pointed out that the up consumes more water than the down traffic. An ascending boat on entering a lock displaces a volume of water equal to its submerged capacity. The water so displaced flows into the lower reach of the canal, and as the boat passes through the lock is replaced by water flowing from the upper reach. A descending boat in the same way displaces a volume of water equal to its submerged capacity, but in this case the water flows back into the higher reach where it is retained when the gates are closed.
An essential adjunct to a canal is a sufficient number of waste-weirs to discharge surplus water accumulating during floods, which, if not provided with an exit, may overflow the tow-path, and cause a breach in the banks, stoppage of the traffic, and damage to adjoining Waste-weirs and stop-gates. lands. The number and positions of these waste-weirs must depend on the nature of the country through which the canal passes. Wherever the canal crosses a stream a waste-weir should be formed in the aqueduct; but independently of this the engineer must consider at what points large influxes of water may be apprehended, and must at such places form not only waste-weirs of sufficient size to carry off the surplus, but also artificial courses for its discharge into the nearest streams. These waste-weirs are placed at the top water-level of the canal, so that when a flood occurs the water flows over them and thus relieves the banks.
Stop-gates are necessary at short intervals of a few miles for the purpose of dividing the canal into isolated reaches, so that in the event of a breach the gates may be shut, and the discharge of water confined to the small reach intercepted between two of them, instead of extending throughout the whole line of canal. In broad canals these stop-gates may be formed like the gates of locks, two pairs of gates being made to shut in opposite directions. In small works they may be made of thick planks slipped into grooves formed at the narrow points of the canal under road bridges, or at contractions made at intermediate points to receive them. Self-acting stop-gates have been tried, but have not proved trustworthy. When repairs have to be made stop-gates allow of the water being run off by “off-lets” from a short reach, and afterwards restored with but little interruption of the traffic. These off-lets are pipes placed at the level of the bottom of the canal and provided with valves which can be opened when required. They are generally formed at aqueducts or bridges crossing rivers, where the contents of the canal between the stop-gates can be run off into the stream.
Locks are chambers, constructed of wood, brickwork, masonry or concrete, and provided with gates at each end, by the aid of which vessels are transferred from one reach of the canal to another. To enable a boat to ascend, the upper gates and the sluices which command the flow of Locks. water from the upper reach are closed. The sluices at the lower end of the lock are then opened, and when the level of the water in the lock has fallen to that of the lower reach, the boat passes in to the lock. The lower gates and sluices being then closed, the upper sluices are opened, and when the water rising in the lock has floated the boat up the level of the upper reach the upper gates are opened and it passes out. For a descending boat the procedure is reversed. The sluices by which the lock is filled or emptied are carried through the walls in large locks, or consist of openings in the gates in small ones. The gates are generally of oak, fitting into recesses of the walls when open, and closing against sills in the lock bottom when shut.
