The proprietors of the Trent Navigation are compelled to make the bed of that river 30 inches deep of water at Trent Bridge in the driest seasons.
The navigation is now complete, with the exception of the collateral cut to Bingham, and the advantages to the town of Grantham are very great; corn, timber, coals, lime, and many other articles both of import and export, by the communication opened through this canal, with those of Nottingham and Cromford, are now transferred at a comparatively easy cost, giving, amongst other things, to the inhabitants of this district, the comforts of fuel at a much less expense than heretofore.
GRESLEY CANAL.
15 George III. Cap. 16, Royal Assent 13th April, 1775.
THIS canal, which pursues a north-west direction, and is level throughout, was made at the expense of Sir Nigel Gresley, Bart. and Nigel Bowyer Gresley, Esq. his son and heir-apparent, for the purpose of conveying the produce of their extensive coal mines in Apedale, in Staffordshire, to the town of Newcastle-under-Lyne, in the same county, and of facilitating their transit to other parts of the country by means of the Newcastle-under-Lyne Junction, and other navigations.
The act obtained as above, is entitled, An Act to enable Sir Nigel Gresley, Bart. and Nigel Bowyer Gresley, Esq. his Son, to make and maintain a navigable Cut or Canal from certain Coal Mines in Apedale, to Newcastle-under-Lyne, in the county of Stafford. This act, after making the usual provisions, binds the proprietors for twenty-one years from and after the date thereof, to furnish the inhabitants of Newcastle with coals at 5s. per ton of twenty hundred weight, weighing one hundred and twenty pounds each hundred weight, and in like proportion for a single hundred weight. At the expiration of the first twenty-one years the proprietors, or their heirs, are to furnish coals at 5s. 6d. per ton for an additional term of twenty-one years; which last quoted price may, under certain conditions, be raised to 6s. per ton; the pro-
