parishes and places called Marsden, Pendle Forest, Ighten Hill Park, Gawthrop, Padiham, Hapton, Altham, Clayton and Harwood, in the county of Lancaster, to a place called Nut or Banks Wood, there to communicate again, with the original line. Under this act the company were authorized to borrow the further sum of £200,000 on the credit of the said canal and of that of the River Douglas Navigation, by assigning over the tolls, rates or duties; the interest on which to be paid in preference to any dividend.
There yet remained the most difficult and most expensive part of this canal to execute: and after an interval of near thirteen years, the company, on resuming the prosecution of the work, appointed Mr. R. Whitworth their engineer, under whose direction it recommenced at Holmbridge in the year 1790. He re-surveyed the whole line and made an estimate for completing the same amounting to £169,817, 15s. 5d.; he also recommended various improvements, the most important of which was to make a tunnel at the summit level near Foulridge, in lieu of following the original plan, by which a head level of above six miles in length was obtained instead of one mile; he also made this part of the canal 2 feet extra depth, which answers the purpose of a reservoir in dry seasons. The work from Holmbridge to Wanlass Banks, near Barrowford, a distance of fourteen miles, in which are 208 feet of lockage, cost £210,000, including £40,000 the expense of the tunnel at Foulridge.
At this period the trade of Lancashire had become so important as to induce the proprietors of this canal to turn their attention to the accommodation of the established manufactories; for which purpose they abandoned the idea of pursuing their original scheme of connecting the east and west sides of the island by the shortest route, and directed their engineer to take a survey through a new line of country which would embrace both the coal and manufacturing districts.
Hence the company, in 1794, again applied to parliament for power to make the proposed deviation in the line of their canal, and obtained an act, entitled, 'An Act to enable the Company of Proprietors of the Canal Navigation from Leeds to Liverpool, to complete the said Navigation, and to vary the Line thereof, and to raise a further Sum of Money for those Purposes; and to make
