which must necessarily pass along it, to supply the richest and most populous parts of Scotland, it has, by means of the Forth and Clyde Canal, a communication with the extensive manufacturing districts around Glasgow and Paisley, and with the western parts of England and Scotland, and with Ireland. On its banks are eighteen market towns; and it washes the shores of eight of its counties.
Leith being the port of Edinburgh, and the principal rendezvous for shipping, considerable cost has been incurred in rendering the harbour proportionably commodious. In 1777 a new quay was constructed on the north side of the harbour. In 1806 a beautiful basin, 750 feet in length, and 300 in breadth, was opened, capable of containing forty ships of two hundred tons burthen. A second was finished in 1817; and these, together with three graving docks, occupy a site of eight acres, and have cost £250,000. Ships of very large burthen cannot enter this port; there being but 16 feet at spring tides, and 9 only at neaps.
A tolerable estimate of the extent of the trade which is carried on at this port, may be formed from parliamentary documents, by which it appears that custom duties were paid, in the year 1824, upon two hundred and twenty-two British, and one hundred and forty-six Foreign ships.
FORTH AND CLYDE CANAL.
8 Geo. III. C. 63, R. A. 8th Mar. 1768.
11 Geo. III. C. 62, R. A. 8th Mar. 1771.
13 Geo. III. C. 104, R. A. 10th May, 1773.
24 Geo. III. C. 59, R. A. 19th Aug. 1784.
27 Geo. III. C. 20, R. A. 21st May, 1787.
27 Geo. III. C. 55, R. A. 28th May, 1787.
30 Geo. III. C. 73, R. A. 9th June, 1790.
39 Geo. III. C. 71, R. A. 12th July, 1799.
46 Geo. III. C. 120, R. A. 12th July, 1806.
54 Geo. III. C. 195, R. A. 14th July, 1814.
1 Geo. IV. C. 48, R. A. 8th July, 1820.
THIS magnificent canal commences in the River Forth, in Grangemouth Harbour, and near to where the Carron empties itself into that river. Its course is parallel with the Carron, and in nearly a westwardly direction, passing to the north of the town of Falkirk, and thence to Red Bridge, where it quits the county of Stirling, and enters a detached portion of the shire of Dumbarton. Hence it passes to the south of Kilsyth, and runs along the south bank of the River Kelvin, and over the Logie Water, by a
