(FORTH & CLYDE CANAL) SMEATON, John A review of several matters relative to the Forth and Clyde Navigation, as now settled by Act of Parliament: with some observations of the reports of Mess. Brindley, Yeoman, and Golburne. [sic] (Edinburgh) 1768
Very small folio. (ii) + 34pp. Modern quarter cloth, orig. marbled wrappers bound in. Ms. ownership inscription of the Carron Company on upper wrapper. Skempton No.1316. Between 1764, when Smeaton produced his plan for the Forth & Clyde Canal, and 1768, when the act for the canal was passed, there were many objections to it. Even after the act was passed, the dissenting voices continued and the famous Carron Iron Co. asked Brindley, Yeoman and Golborne to carry out a survey and report on yet another alternative canal. This is Smeaton’s answer to their report in which he discusses their findings in detail, commenting somewhat acidly, that “after the proposition has been suffered to pass into a law...to send down for engineers to determine, whether the law itself is rightly founded, and to prevent execution till that be determined, is indeed to me a very extraordinary evolution”. He ably defends his plan for a canal of sufficiently large dimensions to take sea-going vessels against Brindley’s plan of a more conventional narrow and shallow canal before discussing its points of entry at either end. He describes the views and ideas of the proprietors upon which his original survey was based in 1763, pointing out that some of his design decisions would have been different had the survey been undertaken five years later. For instance, given the growing success of the Carron Co, and particularly the establishment of its ship-building branch, he, too would have advised an entrance much nearer to the works as recommended by the three engineers. Moments of humour creep in as when he comments, “That my brother Brindley should prefer the Printfield passage, I can readily comprehend. A late author has very solidly demonstrated, that every man, how great soever his genius has a certain hobby-horse that he likes to ride:- A large aquaeduct [sic] bridge over a large river does not happen to be mine...”. As a whole, the review is as fascinating as an expression of his personal views on his role as an engineer as it is on his technical prowess. This copy has an interesting provenance in that it belonged to the Carron Co., which commissioned Brindley, Yeoman and Golborne in the first place.
£550
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