payment of compensation claims, in respect of consequential damage, wherein it is requited that all such claims should be made on or before the 1st of February, 1826.
This canal, which was projected and commenced chiefly with the view of giving facilities to the Baltic Timber Trade, was opened in October, 1822. Its depth is 15 feet, although it was proposed, originally, to be 5 feet deeper; but as the estimate for giving this increased depth was £41,000, and, as the Baltic Timber Trade has been in a great measure destroyed, by the new scale of duties having directed the trade to Canada, the commissioners have, at present, decided, not to add this cost to the enormous sum of £977,524, which had been expended on the canal up to the 1st of January, 1828.
Though this is a capital navigation for ships drawing 15 feet water, in addition to the advantages gained by avoiding the circuitous and dangerous navigation through Pentland Frith, and the Western Hebrides, it has not hitherto attracted the attention of seafaring adventurers so much as might have been expected; for it appears from the twenty-fourth report of the commissioners in July, 1828, that the total number of ships which availed themselves of this passage, in 1826, was nine hundred and forty-four; in 1827, seven hundred and sixty-six; and in 1828, eight hundred and eighty-two; and the total produce of the rates for the year ending May, 1828, was only £2,870, whilst the expense incurred in keeping up the canal amounted to £4,173, leaving a deficiency of £1,303, which has been borrowed.
Since January 1st, 1828, the tonnage rates have been reduced to the original rate of one farthing per ton per mile, which may have the effect of attracting the shipping interest to the more frequent use of this canal.
Nearly thirty years previous to the passing of the first act relating to this canal, Mr. Watt surveyed the line, and estimated that a canal of 12 feet water would cost £164,031, exclusive of land. Two years, however, previous to the date of the first act, Mr. Telford, along with Mr. Murdoch Downie, being directed by government to examine the line, recommended a canal of the width of 110 feet at the surface, and 50 feet at the bottom, with 20 feet water, and the locks 162 feet by 38; and the estimate formed by Mr. W.
