twelve miles and a half, without a lock; thence it passes Thorpe Falcon, and across the navigable River Tone by an aqueduct, about five miles east of Taunton. The line from the Tone runs parallel, for some miles, with the intended Bridgewater and Taunton Canal, and along the line of a part of it by St. Michael's and Huntworth, to the town of Bridgewater, which it passes on its west side, and thence north-westwardly by Wembdon, to the River Parrett, along the shore of which it continues to Combwich, where it leaves the river, and running direct to Stolford, locks down into Bridgewater Bay, in the Bristol Channel.
The canal will be forty-four miles and five furlongs in length; in the first eleven miles and three quarters, from Seaton Bay, it rises 245 feet, by twenty-nine locks, from low water in the English Channel; thence for twelve miles and a half it is level; and for the remaining twenty miles and three furlongs there is a fall of 267 feet 7 inches, by twenty-nine locks, to low water in the Bristol Channel. By the section here described, it would seem as though the levels had been mis-stated by us, or that an error had been committed in taking them; but the apparent discrepancy is to be accounted for by the different rise of the tides in the two channels. At Bridgewater Bay in the Bristol Channel, the ordinary spring tides are 36 feet 6 inches, and the high spring tides rise 40 feet; while in Seaton Bay, in the English Channel, the ordinary spring tides are but 12 feet, and the high spring tides seldom exceed 15 feet 6 inches, so that the latter in the Bristol Channel are higher by 2 feet than in the English Channel; whilst the low water line is 22 feet 7 inches below it.
This canal is to be made 15 feet deep, 90 feet wide, and capable of being navigated by ships of two hundred tons register. It is to be supplied with water from reservoirs; viz, one in the Axe Valley, near Seaborough, Covering a surface of two hundred and seventeen acres and three roods; and another in the same valley, in the parish of Winshem. The third is at the upper end of the valley of the Yarty, near Hilhaven Bridge, in the parishes of Yarcombe and Membury; and the other at Ridge, on the Kilbridge River, in the parish of Chardstock, in the county of Dorset. The Hilhaven Bridge Reservoir is to be to the extent of one hundred and five acres, and that at Ridge sixteen and a half.
