The position of this port is considerably more inland than Hull, being on the River Ouse, at some distance from the point at which it falls into the Humber, and close to the junction of the Dutch river with the former. Though so far up the country, vessels drawing 15 feet 6 inches water have discharged at Goole, within the last two months.* It has two wet-docks and a basin, connected with the Ouse by locks. The first, or the Ship Dock, is in length 600 feet, in width 200, and will contain fifty-four sail of square-rigged vessels, seventeen of which can lie at the quays at the same time. The second, or Barge Dock, is in length 900 feet, in width 150, and is adapted to the small craft which navigate from Goole, and from seawards, into the interior of Yorkshire, of which it will accommodate 200 sail. The Basin or Harbour is 250 feet by 200, and has nineteen feet depth of water. The timber-pond will contain 3000 loads. The conveniences on these are described to contain 12,000 superficial yards of vaults and floors for the bonding of goods and merchandise, and particularly foreign grain; fourteen deal yards, spacious sheds, and every other accommodation. From Goole a canal runs up to Ferrybridge, where it effects a junction with the river Aire. This completes the water connexion with Leeds and Wakefield; and by the numerous natural and artificial lines of navigation which diverge from these two important places, it maintains an economical and uninterrupted communication with the distant counties of Lancashire, Cheshire, and Staffordshire. So rapid is the transit from Leeds and Wakefield, that goods sent from these places in the evening, will reach Goole in twelve hours, and may be on their voyage to Hamburg, &c. &c. on the following day. By an act obtained in the 9th of George IV. the company have the power of making additional docks and warehouses, and such other improvements and conveniences as the increase of the trade of the port may at any time require. Steam-boats wait off the port of Hull, (where vessels bound for Goole are visited by the revenue officers,) to facilitate the navigation of the rivers Humber and Ouse. New London Bridge. This bridge is advancing rapidly to its completion. All the centering is struck. The land arches of the bridge are in progress; and the construction of the arch across Thames-street, for the approach to the bridge on the city side, has commenced. We hope to give a detailed account of this splendid work in the Companion for 1831. Chester Bridge.-A new bridge, of a single arch, is in progress of erection over the Dee at Chester. The span of the bridge is 200 feet, being the largest stone arch ever built, the road-way 33, the élevation from low water mark 54. The southern abutment is finished, and its wing walls are nearly The following is an extract from a survey, made by order of the Trinity-house at Hull; "The lowest sounding in the passage from Hull to Goole, at low water is five feet; the neap tides flow eleven feet at Goole, the springs fourteen or seventeen feet. If the fall in the river between the two places be taken into consideration, it will prove that there is ample depth of water for vessels drawing sixteen feet to Goole. so; the northern abutment is, in the front, got up to the springing course; its wing walls are scarcely yet commenced, though the piles are now on the ground, and most of the stone is raised. Two of the four transverse walls for the support of the centre are built. The following is a sketch of this graceful edifice, which is one of the last designs of the late Mr. Harrison, of Chester: 9. ROADS. The third report of the Commissioners of the Metropolis Turnpike Roads, dated April 29, 1829, details some important experiments either effected or contemplated. The Commissioners have been enabled entirely to abolish the Night Tolls, "which, from being leviable only within particular hours, and attended with other circumstances liable to doubt and contradiction, were the fruitful sources of vexation and disputes." The Commissioners have also been enabled, with the sanction of parliament, to equalize the tolls. (See Public Acts.) The most valuable improvement which the Commissioners contemplate, is the removal of turnpike gates in and near the metropolis; assessing the parishes for the maintenance of the roads, instead of taking a toll. The following is a list of the length of road in each parish, which is to be given up, and placed, like others, under the care of the respective parishes through which they pass: St. Mary-le-bone.....1 St. Pancras.. Clerkenwell Islington Increased Parochial Rates. d. Length. 187 .2 0 16 14 St. Luke's... Shoreditch.. Paddington... 5 219 7 180 4 48 Mr. M'Adam's report urges the extension of stone roads, and adds that nine miles of such road have been added to three miles constructed by the late trustees. The sixth report of the Commissioners of the Road from London to Holyhead, details many improvements on this great line. The Appendix, being Mr. Telford's report, communicates the results of an experiment on the construction of roads, which appears of considerable importance, recommended as it is by the experience of this judicious engineer: "In order to ascertain the most effectual mode of rendering the driving way hard and smooth, I caused an experiment to be made along a quarter of a mile, at the northern extremity of this road, by constructing the roadway with a bottoming of Parker's cement and gravel, and with a coat of Hartshill stone laid upon it; and to ascertain what would be the comparative effect of using the same stone on the old surface of the road, I had a large quantity of it laid on between the Arch and the Holloway Road. The result is, that between the months of October and March last, full four inches of the stone on the old road, between the Arch and the Holloway Road, was worn away, where eight inches had been laid on, while not one inch was worn down where it was laid on the cement bottoming. This result corresponds with other trials where bottoming has been made with rough stone pavement. "This leads to the conclusion, that in all cases where the sub-soil of a road is clay, or in truth any thing but gravel, and where stone cannot be procured at any moderate expense, a bottoming of cement and gravel ought to be adopted. "Pursuant to the authority given me by the Commissioners, a contract has been made for laying a cement bottoming fifteen feet in width in the middle of the whole of this road, for coating it with Guernsey granite, and for covering the sides of the fifteen feet with four inches of strong gravel, and for making footpaths. "It is but justice to my assistant, Mr. Mac Neil, to mention that this plan of forming a cement bottoming was suggested to me by him; a plan which promises to be of the most important advantages in those districts of the country where stones cannot be procured at a moderate expense. "The different parts of the Holyhead Road which have been newly made with a strong bottoming of stone pavement, placed beyond all question the advantage of this mode of construction; the strength and hardness of the surface admit of carriages being drawn over it with the least possible distress to horses. The surface materials, by being on a dry bed, and not mixed with the sub-soil, become perfectly fastened together in a solid mass, and receive no other injury by carriages passing over them than the mere perpendicular pressure of the wheels; whereas, when the materials lie on earth, the earth that necessarily mixes with them is affected by wet and frost, the mass is always more or less loose, and the passing of carriages produces motion among all the pieces of stone; which, causing their rubbing together, wears them on all sides, and hence the more rapid decay of them when thus laid on earth, than when laid on a bottoming of rough stone pavement. As the materials wear out less rapidly on such a road, the expense of keeping it in repair is proportionally reduced. The expense of scraping and removing the drift is not only diminished, but with Hartshill stone, Guernsey granite, or other stone equally hard, is nearly altogether done away." The fifteenth report on Highland Roads and Bridges contains a very detailed report, by Mr. Telford, of his inspection of the Roads and Bridges in Scotland maintained under the Parliamentary Commissioners. 10. CANALS AND RAILWAYS. Birmingham Canal Improvements.-The important portion of the system of inland navigation called the Birmingham Canal, was originally made by authority of Parliament in the years 1768 and 1769, for the purpose of forming an easy communication between the mineral districts of Staffordshire and the town of Birmingham on the southern side, and the town of Wolverhampton on the northern side. Its original length was a little more than twenty-two miles from Birmingham to its junction with the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal below Wolverhampton, and the facilities which were thus afforded to the active energies of a large manufacturing population, created upon the original line such an important trade as to induce the proprietors from time to time, under sanction of the legislature, to make branches and extensions of their canal, in various directions through the coal and iron districts in its immediate vicinity, and also to make an additional line of canal from Birmingham to Fazeley, in order to open a new road to London through the Coventry and Oxford Canals, so that the whole canal has now spread itself over a distance of more than seventy miles. Within the last three years, the improvements upon this canal have been such as to excite the admiration of scientific engineers, and to command the approbation of all persons who are accustomed to take pleasure in contemplating works of science and national improvement. The original line of this canal, as laid out by the celebrated Mr. Brindley, was very circuitous, and one great object of improvement has been to shorten the mileage between Wolverhampton and Birmingham; this has been already effected, under the superintendence of Mr. Telford, to a considerable extent, and when the works now in active progress for this purpose shall be completed, the distance by canal between these two towns will be about fourteen miles, being scarcely one mile farther than the turnpike road; many deep cuttings have been made, and numerous embankments have been raised in order to effect this object, which is of great importance to a thoroughfare trade. But what is of still more consequence to the immediate district, the communication between the town of Birmingham and a great portion of the collieries will be expedited by the avoiding of three ascend-ing and three descending locks, which have heretofore existed at Smethwick and Spon Lane. The quantities of earth which have been moved, in order particularly to effect the avoidance of these six locks, are ascertained to be 1,697,414 cubic yards; the wholeof which have been excavated and removed, in a length of two miles, and in a period of two years and a half, between March 1827, and September 1829. On this part of the work the slopes are one and a half horizontal to one perpendicular. The greatest depth of cutting is seventy-one feet; the water-way of the canal is made forty feet wide, and five feet six inches deep; it is walled with stone on each side; and the trade is very much facilitated by the existence of a towing path, twelve feet wide on each bank. Over this chasm are thrown, at various places, bridges of brick and stone, in the construction of which considerable ingenuity has been displayed, as several of them are much askew. At the place of greatest excavation is erected the largest canal bridge in the world; it is made of iron: the arch is one hundred and fifty feet span, and over it passes a public roadway twenty-six feet wide; each of the other bridges is fifty-two feet span, and all the bridges are so wide as to admit the water-way and towing-path without being subject to contraction. Near Spon Lane is constructed an aqueduct of two arches, by means of which the original line of canal is carried across the new works, without the water-way or towing-paths of either the old or new lines being in any way contracted; and at Smethwick has been made an elegant iron-aqueduct, through which any surplus water is conveyed from the upper level of the old canal, across the new works, into a feeder which has been formed to carry water to a magnificent reservoir recently constructed by the Canal Company, covering upwards of eighty acres of ground, and of an average depth of more than thirty feet. This feeder also has been made to convey water from the reservoir into the upper level, or original line of the canal; while the new works, or Birmingham level, can be supplied with water from the same reservoir at any moment, if the quantity provided by the descending lockage from the upper level to the lower, should be at any time insufficient to keep up the canal to its proper level. Throughout the whole line of improvements are erected, at convenient stations, small accommodation bridges, to enable traders to cross off the line, and thus prevent any inconvenience arising from the regulation, which is rigidly enforced, for the boats passing towards Birmingham to use one towing-path, while those passing towards Wolverhampton and the collieries use the opposite 'one. But what is particularly to be remarked is, that each of these smaller bridges is constructed of such span, as to render unnecessary the slightest contraction of the towing-paths or waterway. At Smethwick the upper level decends into the improved new line of canal, and between this point and the town of Birmingham, the line of canal has been so much shortened that in a distance of four miles and three-eighths, nearly two miles have been saved; in order to effect this, there have been formed three considerable embankments, and a depth of cutting has been effected, which, prior to the works completed at Smethwick; were thought to be of extraordinary magnitude. The quantity of earth removed to complete these three embankments, and the intervening deep cutting, was 370,000 cubic yards, which was moved in the space of two years and a half, and throughout a distance of two miles and upwards, as between the different points of improvement lay portions of the original circuitous line; this part of the canal is principally walled on each side, has double towing. paths, is in all parts forty feet wide, and for some distance the water-way is more than fifty feet wide. Where the canal is not walled the water-way is effectually fenced with wood-work. Across this part of the canal are thrown several elegant ironbridges; but there are two public road-bridges in this district, which were built of common brick in 1826, and are so much askew as to deserve mention, one being fifty-two feet span and |