canal is 4 feet 6 inches deep, and the locks are 53 feet in length, and 14 feet 4 inches wide; admitting such vessels as usually navigate the Dun, and Aire and Calder Navigation.
Seven years subsequent to the date of the first act, the company were, after having completed a considerable portion of the canal, under the necessity of applying to parliament for another act, to enable them to borrow more money and to increase the rates; which act received the royal assent on the 30th May, 1800, and is entitled, 'An Act to enable the Dearne and Dove Canal Company to finish and complete the said Canal, and the several collateral Cuts branching therefrom; and for explaining, amending and enlarging the Powers of an Act, passed in the Thirty-third Year of the Reign of his present Majesty, for making and maintaining the said Canal and collateral Cuts; and for increasing the Tolls thereby granted.' This act empowers the company to raise among themselves, or by the admission of new subscribers, or by calls upon the original shareholders, the sum of £30,000, instead of by mortgage, as prescribed by the former act; if by a new subscription, the act directs it to be raised by dividing the same into six hundred half shares of £50 each; and if this sum be insufficient, they may borrow an additional £10,000, on mortgage of the undertaking.
Power is also given to demand one-half, or fifty per cent. additional tonnage, and the same advance upon cranage, porterage, warehouse and wharfage rates, upon every article, except flag paving-stone, limestone or lime, which shall have been previously navigated up the Barnsley Canal from Wakefield.
Mr. Whitworth, who projected and laid out this canal, continued to be the engineer till the time of his death. The works were finished and the opening took place in 1804.
The chief object of the undertaking was to open a cheaper communication with the mining districts towards its western termination, in order that their rich and various productions should find a more advantageous market; and to give greater facilities for the transit of the manufactures of Barnsley to the port of Hull.
