THE WATERWAYS OF SCOTLAND.
“Former things
Are set aside, like abdicated kings.”
—_Ovid._
Scotland has a number of rivers of the first importance, especially
the Clyde, the Tay, the Dee, and the Tweed. It has a large number of
smaller streams, most of them, however, having too tortuous a course,
too impetuous a flow, or too shallow a bed, to be used to any extent
for purposes of navigation. This remark does not, of course, apply to
the numerous lakes or lochs of Scotland, but these are, for the most
part, either situated in inaccessible regions, or in localities where
there is not trade enough to provide any considerable amount of traffic.
The Clyde is pre-eminently distinguished for the extent of its traffic,
and for the improvements that have made it what it is.
Camden does not say much as to the condition of the Clyde in his time,
and he is almost equally reticent about Glasgow. “The river Glotta
or Clwyd,” he says, “runneth from Hamilton, by Bothwell ... and so
straight forward, with a readie stream, through Glasgow, in ancient
times past a Bishop’s seat ... now the most famous town of merchandise
in this tract.” In Camden’s time the other qualifications of Glasgow
appear to have been that it had “a pleasant site, and apple trees, and
other like fruit trees, much commended, having also a very fine bridge
supported with eight arches.”
It is upwards of 300 years since the Magistrates and Town Council of
Glasgow made the first attempts to improve the Clyde, then a shallow,
brawling stream, which could easily be crossed on foot even opposite
Glasgow, and was only suitable for the navigation of herring boats, and
similarly small craft. In 1768 an engineer, named Golborne, contracted
the river by the construction of rubble jetties, and the removal of
sand and gravel shoal by dredging, &c.
From 1781 till 1836, the works carried on for the further improvement
of the river under the direction, consecutively, of Golborne, Rennie,
and Telford, consisted chiefly in the shortening of some, and the
lengthening of other of Golborne’s jetties, the construction of
additional jetties, the connecting of the outer ends of these jetties
by half-tide training walls on both sides of the river, so as to
confine the water and increase the ebb scour, and the removal of hard
shoals by dredging.
It was not till 1836 that the river from Glasgow to Port Glasgow was
treated as a whole, and a true appreciation shown of its future by the
Clyde Trustees’ then Engineer Logan, in the laying down of river lines,
which, with some slight modifications and expansions, have up till now
formed the limits of the river’s improvements.
Parliamentary plans on these lines approved of by James Walker,
Consulting Engineer to the Trustees, were submitted to and sanctioned
by Parliament in 1840; but so inadequate was the appreciation of the
depth required, that 20 ft. at high water neap tides was recommended by
Logan as the extreme depth of the river and harbour, and a clause in
the Act empowering the deepening to proceed until every part thereof
shall have attained at least a depth of 17 ft. at high water neap tides.
The depth in the harbour of Glasgow at the present time is from 25 ft.
to 29 ft, and in the river from 27 ft. to 29 ft. at high water neaps,
high water springs being about 2 ft. higher. The average tidal range of
spring tides at Glasgow is 11 ft. 2 in., and at Port Glasgow 10 ft.;
and of neaps at Glasgow 9 ft. 2 in., and at Port Glasgow 8 ft. 3 in.
While jetties and training walls, or parallel dykes, performed a
useful part in the early improvement of the river, it is to persistent
dredging that the enormous increase in the magnitude of the river since
1840 is due.
The early dredging was performed by large rakes, or porcupine ploughs,
as they were called, because they were provided with strong iron teeth,
wrought by hand capstans, which drew the material from the bed of the
river on to the banks.
Hand-wrought, and subsequently horse-wrought, dredges, with small
buckets on a ladder, succeeded the plough, and in 1824 the first steam
dredger was started on the river. It dredged, however, only to 10 ft
6 in. Now several of the dredges employed can work in 35 ft. depth of
water.
Mr. Deas, the engineer to the Clyde Trust, has stated[55] that it is
due to the application of steam power to dredges, and the subsequent
adoption of steam hopper barges for carrying the dredged material to the
sea, that the rapid enlargement not only of the Clyde and the Harbour
of Glasgow, but of the Tyne, the Tees, and several other similar rivers
in recent years are due. But for the introduction of the latter, it
would have been physically, financially, and otherwise impossible to
have disposed, within so limited a time, of the enormous quantities of
material which have been dredged from these various rivers and harbours.
Up till 1862, all the material dredged from the river Clyde and harbour
of Glasgow was loaded on punts holding eight cubic yards, and deposited
on the alveus or foreshores, or the low-lying land adjoining the river.
Many acres were thus reclaimed, to the great gain of the riparian
proprietors, to whom the Trustees required to hand over the ground free
of cost. The adoption of steam hopper barges, holding from 240 to 320
cubic yards each, removed these obstacles, and enabled the deepening,
widening, and straightening of the river and harbour to be proceeded
with more rapidly, without seriously obstructing the navigation with
steam tugs and trains of punts. The result has been that while in
1861 the total quantity dredged and deposited on land was 593,176
cubic yards, the total quantity dredged in 1887 was 1,319,344 cubic
yards, only 64,000 cubic yards of which was deposited on land. The
total quantity dredged during the forty-two years ending 1888 amounted
to 32,027,834 cubic yards, the quantity in the first twenty-one
years being 9,091,544 cubic yards, and in the last twenty-one years,
22,936,290 cubic yards.
In 1755, the Clyde at Glasgow was only 15 in. deep at low water, and
3 ft 8 in. at high water, while the depth at Marlinford, three miles
below the harbour, was 18 in., and at Erskine, or Kilpatrick Sands,
about eight miles below, and at Dumbuck Ford, ten miles below, only
2 ft. at low water. In 1781, the depth at Dumbuck Ford was 14 ft. at
low water; it is now 20 ft. In 1806, Telford reports that on February
14th of that year the _Harmony_, of Liverpool, came up with ordinary
spring tide, drawing 8 ft. 6 in. of water; but up till 1812, the river
from the harbour downwards to Bowling was so shallow, that the _Comet_
required to leave Glasgow and Greenock, respectively, at or near high
water to prevent it grounding in the river. Now, vessels drawing 23 and
24 ft. of water pass up the river almost daily. The Clyde Trust, who
are charged with the control of the river, had expended thereon, up to
the middle of 1887, upwards of eleven and a half millions sterling, and
had, besides, contracted a debt of over four and a half millions. The
accompanying diagram will show the depths of the channel in Glasgow
harbour at different dates, but the whole of the river has been dredged
constantly from that city down to Port Glasgow, a distance of nearly
twenty miles, and the bed of the river between these points is now
virtually level throughout.
[Illustration: DEPTH OF THE CLYDE AT DIFFERENT PERIODS.]
The shipping industry has, in consequence, enormously increased. In
1888, 8428 vessels, of 1,891,000 tons, entered, and 8053 vessels, of
1,444,000 tons, cleared from Glasgow in the coasting trade; while the
total number of all vessels that entered in the same year was 8217,
with 2,416,000 tons register, the clearances being 8738 vessels, with
2,787,000 tons.
THE FORTH AND CLYDE CANAL.
This, the most important Canal in Scotland, commences in Grangemouth
harbour, in the small river Carron, about two miles, by the low-water
channel, above its mouth in the estuary of the Forth. The general
direction of the canal is that of west by south. It at first runs a
considerable way on one level along the south side of the Carron, with
which it again communicates by a cut from it at Bainsford, to that
river at the Carron Iron Works.
[Illustration: SECTION OF THE FORTH AND CLYDE CANAL.]
The main line then passes to the north-west of Falkirk, and thence to
Bonny Bridge, proceeding by the south side of Kilsyth, and along the
south bank of the river Kelvin, and over the Logie Water by a stone
aqueduct at Kirkintilloch. It then reaches Hamilton Hill about two
miles from the north-west quarter of the city of Glasgow, to which
there is a branch of two miles, and three quarters, communicating with
a branch from the Monkland Canal at Port-Dundas Basin. The main line
now proceeds Westerly, crossing the Kelvin by an aqueduct, and then
runs along the side of the Clyde, till it at length locks down to that
river at Bowling Bay. The main line is 35 miles long, 56 feet wide at
top, 27 feet at bottom, and 10 feet deep. In 10¾ miles from Grangemouth
to the summit, it rises 156 feet by 20 locks. The summit-level
continues about 16 miles, and from it to the Clyde there is a descent
of 156 feet by 19 locks. Each lock is 74 feet long by 20 feet wide.
At lock No. 16 from Grangemouth, this canal connects with the
Edinburgh, and Glasgow Union Canal.
Instead of having the eastern extremity of this canal in the Carron,
it was originally intended to have had it considerably farther east,
or lower down the Forth, in the deeper water at Borrowstounness.
This would have been an improvement, but probably one not so easily
executed. The work was once really begun, and afterwards abandoned,
chiefly, it is presumed, from the difficulty of passing over the river
Avon, without raising the canal a good deal for several miles along
the low carse lands. The remains of a bungled aqueduct bridge for this
purpose were lately to be seen on the banks of that river.
The present canal joining the Forth and the Clyde was begun in 1768,
but it was suspended in 1777, and not resumed until after the close of
the American war. It was completed in 1790. It was built on a larger
scale than any of the English Canals up to that time. Originally the
canal was about 8 ft. 6 in. deep, but its banks were afterwards raised,
and the depth of water was increased to 10 feet. In completing this
canal many serious difficulties were encountered. These, however,
were successfully overcome; and though unprofitable for a while,
it afterwards, for many years, yielded a handsome return to its
proprietors, the dividend having been at one time about 28 per cent. on
the original stock. Swift boats were established on this canal in 1832,
and the waterway is historically interesting as having been the scene
of some of the earliest experiments in steam propulsion.
Reference has been made elsewhere to the proposals now under
consideration with a view to the construction of another canal from the
Forth to the Clyde. Should these proposals be carried out, the future
of the existing Forth and Clyde Canal could hardly fail to be overcast,
but as the canal is now virtually the property of the Caledonian
Railway Company, that would not probably be greatly felt.
THE UNION AND MONKLAND CANALS.
There are two canals that are in the same locality as the Forth and
Clyde, already alluded to, but of greatly subordinate importance. The
Monkland serves the important iron and coal mining and manufacturing
districts in the West, of which Airdrie and Coatbridge are the
principal centres, and gives access therefrom to the Clyde. The Union
Canal is really a feeder to, and branch of, the Forth and Clyde Canal,
some distance further east.
The Union Canal joins the Forth and Clyde Canal near Falkirk, and
stretches thence to Edinburgh, being 31½ miles in length. It is 40 feet
wide at the top, 20 at the bottom, and 5 deep, It was completed in
1822, but has been, in all respects, a most unprofitable undertaking.
For many years the proprietors have not received any dividend, and
their prospects, we understand, are not improving.
A canal intended to form a communication between Glasgow, Paisley,
and Ardrossan was commenced in 1807, but only that portion connecting
Glasgow with Paisley and the village of Johnston has hitherto been
finished. This part is about 12½ miles long, the canal being 30 feet
broad at top, 18 at bottom, and 4½ deep. It was here that the important
experiments were originally made on quick travelling by canals, which
demonstrated that it was practicable to impel a properly constructed
boat, carrying passengers and goods, along a canal at the rate of 9 or
10 miles an hour, without injury to the banks.
THE CALEDONIAN CANAL.
A valley remarkable for its uniformity, straightness, and depth,
and extending from sea to sea, between two parallel ranges of steep
mountains, divides the Highlands of Scotland into two nearly equal
parts. The general direction of this chasm is from north-east to
south-west, making an angle of about 35 degrees with the meridian; and,
besides being entered at each extremity by an arm of the sea, viz., by
the Moray Firth on the north, and Loch Linnhe on the south, the rest
of its bottom is for the most part occupied by a series of rivers and
lakes. The remarkably elongated form and contiguity of these lakes had
long ago suggested the facility of forming an inland communication
between the Atlantic Ocean and the German Sea. In order to accomplish
this important object, it seemed sufficient to connect these lakes and
the firths by several short canals amounting together to 23 miles, and
thereby obtain a navigable line to an extent of more than 100 miles;
and this was farther recommended by the summit-level only rising 94½
feet above the sea.
So far back as the year 1773, this line had been surveyed by James
Watt, who reported favourably of it, and proposed that the lakes should
be connected by a canal of a very moderate size. Nothing further,
however, was done till early in the present century, when the subject
was taken up by Government, and new surveys were made by Messrs. Jessop
and Telford, who recommended a canal of such dimensions as should admit
frigates of thirty-two guns, and the greater part of merchant ships,
particularly that class which trade between the Baltic and the ports of
Ireland and the west coast of Britain; thus avoiding, it was hoped, a
tedious, and often dangerous navigation by the Orkneys. The dimensions
proposed by Telford, and mainly adhered to, were a width of 50 feet at
bottom, 120 feet at top, and 20 feet deep; the locks from 170 to 180
feet long, and 40 wide, with a depth of 20 feet of water besides the
lift, or rise. The canal has, however, only been excavated to the depth
of 15 feet in the summit-level, though the width has been increased to
122 feet at the top, with such a break in the slope that there is on
each side a horizontal shelf 6 feet broad at the depth of 2 feet under
the surface of the water. The design in this break in the slope of the
sides is to keep large vessels from approaching too close to the edge
of the canal, and destroying the upper part of the banks, either by
contact or by the eddy produced between the vessel and the sides of the
canal. On the north, the Caledonian Canal commences with a sea lock at
Clach-na-Carry, in a sheltered bay of Loch Beauly, which is the more
inland part of the Moray Firth. The sea-lock here is about two miles
north-west of Inverness, and three-quarters of a mile west of the Ferry
of Kessock, which is near the mouth of the river Ness. In order to have
sufficient depth of water at ordinary neap-tides, it was necessary,
on account of the flatness of the shore, to place this lock 400 yards
within sea-water mark, an operation attended with difficulty on account
of the softness of the bottom. This lock is 170 feet long, 40 wide,
with a lift of 8½ feet; and proceeding from it, the canal is formed by
embankments till it passes the sea-mark, where another lock of the same
size, with a lift of 6 feet, is built on firm ground. On the south of
this is the Muirton basin, 967 yards long and 162 yards broad, with a
wharf for the trade in that quarter, being about a mile from Inverness.
At the southern extremity of this basin is a swivel or swing bridge
for the public road between Beauly and Inverness; and then four locks,
which, however, from their being connected, have only five double
gates in the whole. These raise the canal 32 feet, which puts it on
the ordinary summer level of Loch Ness. Each lock is 180 feet between
the gates, and 40 feet wide. The canal thence proceeds until it meets,
and runs along the north-west bank of the river Ness to the small lake
Doughfour, which is about 2100 yards long, and from 5 to 9 fathoms
deep, and is 6½ miles from Clach-na-Carry. It communicates with Loch
Ness by the pass of Bona Ferry. The intended line of canal being on the
west side of the river Ness, which in three different places approached
close to the steep sides of the hills on the west, it was necessary
to alter the course of that river, so as to obtain room for the canal
without cutting into the hills. At the entrance to Loch Doughfour is a
regulating, or guard-lock, without any lift, to prevent any overflow
from the lake. It is 170 feet long, and 40 wide. It was necessary to
deepen this small lock in several places by dredging, and to raise it
6 feet to the level of Loch Ness by a weir, and embankment. The next
part of this navigation, and by far the most extensive lake in it, is
Loch Ness, a fine sheet of water about 24 miles long, and from 1 to 1½
miles broad. Its depth is so great that it never freezes, being from 5
to 129 fathoms, and along the middle it averages 100. It affords good
anchorage at each end, and also in a few bays, although the sides of
this lake are generally straight. It was proposed to introduce buoys
for more convenient moorings. There are nowhere in it either rocks or
banks detached from the shore.
Loch Ness receives the river Oich in its western shore not far from
its southern extremity, and a little south of this the canal leaves
the lake, whilst almost quite at the southern end stand the fort and
village of Fort Augustus. From this the canal ascends 40 feet by five
locks, and at Callachie, about 2½ miles further on, it rises 8 feet
by another lock. Three miles more bring it to Loch Oich, where a
regulating lock raises it 30 inches, so as to be even with that lake,
which is on the summit level.
To obtain a proper line for the canal upon the south-east side of the
river Oich, the channel of that river has been somewhat altered. Loch
Oich, which forms the summit-level of this navigation, is about 3¾
miles long, and on an average a quarter of a mile broad. In one place
in the middle, and at both ends, it had to be deepened by dredging.
The water which falls into this lake, particularly from the river
Garry, affords at all times an ample supply for the canal. Between Loch
Oich and the next lake in the line, Loch Lochy, there is no natural
communication. The interval is about 1¾ miles, and rises 20 feet
above the Loch Oich, which, with the depth of the canal, required a
cutting of 35 feet. Loch Lochy, which was 21 feet 9 inches lower than
Loch Oich, has been raised about 12 feet by an embankment to avoid
rock-cutting, and the canal descends to it 9 feet 9 inches by two
locks, one of which is also a regulating, or guard lock. Loch Lochy is
10 miles long, and averages one in breadth. In some places it is 76
fathoms in depth. About half a mile of the course of the river Lochy
had to be shifted into a new bed to make room for the canal, which, now
in its last stage, proceeds from the lake for 8 miles along the
north-west bank of that river over a rugged surface to the shore of
Loch Eil, which is the more inland part of the Firth, called Loch
Linnhe. A little south of Loch Lochy there is a regulating lock; and
about a mile from Loch Eil there are eight connected locks, called
Neptune’s Stairs, by which the canal descends 64 feet. At Corpach shore
it falls 15 feet by two locks, and, after expanding into a basin 250
yards long and 100 broad, it finally descends 7 feet 9 inches by the
sea-lock into Loch Eil near Fort William.
The entire length of this navigation is 60½ miles, and that of
the artificial part, including Loch Doughfour, is 23 miles. There
are in all twenty-eight locks. This canal has, as yet, been a
most unprofitable speculation, not even paying the expense of its
maintenance.
Before leaving the waterways of Scotland, it may be interesting to
remark that inland navigation occupied a good deal of attention from
James Watt,[56] although the great mechanician did not accomplish so
much in this direction as his contemporary, Brindley. Watt was employed
in 1767 to make a survey for a canal of junction between the rivers
Forth and Clyde, by what was called the Lomond passage, and attended
Parliament on the part of the subscribers, where the Bill was lost. An
offer was then made to him of undertaking the survey and estimate of
an intended canal for the Monkland Collieries to Glasgow, and these
proving satisfactory the superintendence of the execution was confided
to him. This was quickly followed by his being employed by the Trustees
for Fisheries and Manufactures in Scotland to make a survey for a canal
from Perth to Forfar, through Strathmore; and soon afterwards by the
Commissioners of the Annexed Estates, to furnish a report and estimate
of the relative advantages of opening a communication between the
Forth of Clyde and the western ocean, by means of a navigable canal
across the isthmus of Crinan,[57] or that of Tarbert. Business of this
description crowded upon him; and surveys, plans, and estimates, were
successively undertaken by him for the deepening of the river Clyde,
the rendering navigable of the rivers Forth and Devon, and the water of
Leven; the making of a canal from Machrihanish Bay to Campbeltown, and
of another between the Grand Canal and the Harbour of Borrowstounness.
But the last and greatest work of the kind upon which Watt was employed
was the survey and estimate of the line of the canal between Fort
William and Inverness, since executed, as we have seen, by Telford,
upon a larger scale than was at that time proposed.
Estuaries hardly come within the scope of the present work, otherwise
the Forth Bridge, recently opened by the Prince of Wales, would
demand and deserve an extended notice. That remarkable engineering
achievement, due to the genius of Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin
Baker, is likely for a long time to remain a unique _tour de force_ as
a means of communication between the opposite shores of an arm of the
sea, and opens up a vista of possibilities in regard to transport that
were undreamt of until recently.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] Paper read in 1888 before the Institution of Naval Architects.
[56] James Watt was born at Greenock on the 19th January, 1736, and
died at Heathfield on the 25th August, 1819. His great invention was
the steam engine; but he was an almost universal genius, having been
almost equally at home in many branches of antiquity, metaphysics,
medicine, and etymology, architecture, music, and law, the modern
languages, and German logic and poetry.
[57] This canal has since been carried out, and now forms an
important link in the chain of communication between the west of
Scotland and Inverness, viâ the “Royal,” or West Coast route.