Remarks on Canal Navigation: Illustrative of the Advantages of the Use of Steam, as a Moving Power on Canals : With an Appendix, Containing a Series of Experiments, Tables, &c. on which a Number of Proposed Improvements are Founded : Also, Plans and Descriptions of Certain Classes of Steam Boats, Intended for the Navigation of Canals, and the Adjoining Branches of the Sea |
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Common terms and phrases
Ardrossan Canal ascertain banks Breadth on beam bridges Brimscomb calculated Canal Committee canal navigation cargo carry centre paddle centre trough Clyde Canal Company coal constructed conveyance of passengers crank Cyclops Depth of Canal distance drag Draught of Water dynamometer Edinburgh feet 6 inches Firth front gig boat gig-shaped boat gives a force Glasgow Grahame Grangemouth half high rate horses improvement increased Inglesham iron Kirkintilloch light locks ments miles an hour miles per hour minutes Monkland Canal moving NOTE OF EXPERIMENTS number of passengers paddle-wheel passage boat Plate plying Port Dundas Port Glasgow Port Hopetown propel rate of speed rate of velocity ratio resistance ripple rope saving shews side view steam boat steam engine steam-power supply of water surge or wave swell Swift tons towing trackage trial twin boat Union Canal vessel wave or surge Weight of Boat wheel wind دو دو دو
Popular passages
Page 22 - The quicker the boat went the more entire was the disappearance of all wave and surge, except where the water escaped in the centre of the canal, and met in two very noisy and rapid currents from each side of the boat at the rudder. This noise and rush of water was so great behind as to induce persons on board to look round expecting to see a great wave or surge on the banks of the canal, but on the banks there was hardly a ripple.
Page 17 - ... the surface, and skims over instead of cutting the water. The moment the towing line is slacked off, the boat sinks to her usual depth, and of course brings herself up immediately, owing to the increased resistance of the additional column of water, which she must cut. On the other hand, when moving at a high rate, and skimming near the surface of the water, the labour of the horse is diminished in proportion to the diminution of the column of water displaced, and the wave or surge is diminished...
Page 19 - Canal, in the space of less than 10 minutes, without raising any surge or commotion on the water — the force employed being one horse, rode by a canal driver. No account of this trial has ever been given to the public, but it was so satisfactory as to induce the Committee of the Ardrossan Canal to contract with Mr. Wood, of Port Glasgow, for a...
Page 22 - ... scaring at the canal. The greatest speed attained during the journey was two miles in eleven minutes. During this voyage the surge behind was entirely got quit of, even at the curves, where it was reduced to nothing; and there was no front wave, except at the bridges. It appeared only at the bridges, and just as the boat was about to enter under the bridge, and gradually disappeared as the stern of the boat cleared the bridge. The quicker the boat went, the more...
Page 5 - Probably this might have gone on in the same state of supposed perfection, had not the introduction of railways, which are now in progress, occasioned such a sensation in the country. From the first commencement of canal navigation up to the present time, the average speed of conveyance has never exceeded four miles and a half per hour on passage boats, and two miles and a half on heavy flats. — This seems to have been the maximum velocity; and it was taken as an established rule, that boats could...
Page 29 - ... that the resistance to a body drawn along a line of water confined within the banks of a canal, did not appear to increase in the ratio laid down in theory; and that, while at a low rate of velocity, viz. at and under six miles an hour, the resistance to the progress of the boat, on a broad line of water, was considerably less than on a narrower line; on the contrary, at a high rate of velocity, say above ten miles an hour, the forces necessary to the propulsion of the boat, on a broad and narrow...
Page 21 - ... minutes. The rider was ordered to start and proceed the first mile or so at a very moderate pace, but even at this moderate pace the wave raised in front of the boat was very considerable. A high wave was seen on the canal preceding the boat, about...
Page 37 - Cyclops had been properly loaded •with a cargo of twenty or thirty tons, the voyage would have been accomplished in less time, with all the delays and the trackage of the passage boat. The estimate of Mr. Johnstone, who is to have the management of the Cyclops, and myself, is, that with a cargo of from forty to fifty tons, she will do the voyage to Alloa, even against a head wind, in eight hours and a half...
Page 19 - ... in giving that degree of steadiness, which, it was apprehended, would be so much wanting in a light single boat. A statement of these experiments on the Forth and Clyde Canal, has already appeared in the newspapers, and the only fact therein mentioned, which it seems necessary to repeat here, is the remarkable circumstance, that the quicker the boats were propelled through the water, the less appearance there was of surge or wave on the sides of the 19 canal.
Page 23 - It may be proper to mention that the Ardrossan canal is, throughout, very narrow; at the bridges and many other places, it is only nine feet broad. It has a great number of turns, and many of them very sudden.