go through them without unnecessary waste of water. The tunnel near Atcham is also remarkable; it is nine hundred and seventy yards in length and 10 feet wide, with a towing-path 3 feet wide, constructed of wood, and supported on bearers from the wall. Mr. Thomas Telford and Mr. William Reynolds were the engineers for constructing this canal.
The length of the canal is seventeen miles and a half; the first twelve miles of which, from Shrewsbury to Langdon, is level; thence to Wombridge, four miles and a quarter, there is a lockage rise of 79 feet; and from thence to Ketley Canal, another rise of 75 feet by an inclined plane, and thence along the Ketley Canal, (purchased of Mr. William Reynolds) is level, making, in the whole distance, a rise of 154 feet, partly by an inclined plane and partly by locks. The fall from the basin to the Severn at Bagley Bridge, Shrewsbury, is 22 feet.
This canal traverses a district of country abounding with coal and iron mines, the proprietors of which, as well as the flourishing and populous town of Shrewsbury, are greatly benefited by the facilities of transmission which it affords.
SHROPSHIRE CANAL.
28 George III. Cap. 73, Royal Assent 11th June, 1788.
THE Shropshire Canal commences at the Donnington Wood Canal, in the parish of Lillishall, and passing by Rockwardine Wood, Oaken Gates, Hollingswood, Stirchley, and Madeley, proceeds to the Hay, near which it is united to the River Severn at Coalport, formerly the Sheep-Wash Meadow, two miles below Coalbrook Dale. Its length is seven miles and a half; from the Severn at Calford to the Hay, a distance of three quarters of a mile, is level; then it rises 207 feet by an inclined plane; it is then level to Windmill Farm; from which point is a rise of 126 feet by another inclined plane; then level to near Rockwardine Wood; from thence it falls 120 feet by an inclined plane; and the remainder of its course to Donnington Wood Canal is level.
The act of parliament authorizing the cutting this canal waspassed in 1788, and is entitled, 'An Act for making and main-
