1801.] Conciſe Account of Tand Navigation. P/

frontiers of China to Peterſburgh, Alſo from Afrachan to Peérerſburgzh by a line of water navigation, one thouſand four hundred miles, and upwards. Ruffia has ſeveral other canals, but oï leis length.

Sweden has long" had canal navigation. One plan to unite thè German Ocean with the Baltic, by the canal of Trothaetta, 1s not quite complete: and Denmark has ſome on her continental dominions.

The canals of Holland, which are out of number, have long been the theme of every traveller. The ſeveral provinces are interſééted with innumerable canals, which ſerve for roads and public highways, and on theſe che Dutch are conſtantly journey- ing and conveying commodities from one place to another. Nor are they in this mode of conveyance confined to their own country, for they have alſo water communications with many parts of France, Flanders, and Germany. The yearly profit of theſe canals is immenſe; and Mr. Phillips, in his ingenious Hi- fory of Inland Navigation, ſays that for one diſtance of forty miles, the annual proût is 250,0001l. which is 6251. per mile. The canals of Oſtend, Ghent, Antwerp, Bruflels,&c. com- municate with the Dutch canals, and mutually aflift each other.

France has canals of conſiderable conſequence. The canal of Burgundy, which forms a communication between the Loire and the Scine. The canal of Orleans, which joins this canal, The cañal of Bourbon, intended to effe&t a communication be- tween Paris and the river Oiſe. A vaſt variety of other canals are in France, and the new government are planning many ad- ditional ones; but the great and really ſuperb work is that of Languedoc, or the canal of the two ſeas, which forms a junction between the Ocean and the Mediteranean.

Tt does honour to the Miniſter Colbert who patronized, and to Riquet, the engineer, who conducted the work, It was be- gun in 1666, and finiſhed in fifteen years, has on it one hundred and fourteen locks, and is conveyed over bridges of vaſt height, which give paſſage to rivers under them. Lt has alſo a tunnel to convey it under a mountain, which, as it was the firſt of the kind of any magnitude, was looked on as a moſt extraordinary undertaking. This work coſt‘about half a million ſterling, of which the king gave one half, and the province paid the re- mainder. This canal begins at Cette, and paſſes to the town of Agde, where there is a baſon with three openings, of three dif- ferent depths of water, the gates ſo contrived that the maſter of the veſſel may open which he pleaſes. There are near Beziers, and alſo near the tunnel, eight locks together, which form a grand and regular caſcade 960 feer long, by which the veſſels croſs the river Orb. At St. Ferriol is a reſervoir which covers 590 acres, with paſſages for the water into the baſon of Panouf, which is the higheſt level, and is embanked and walled round