THE UNITED KINGDOM: CANALS—POSTS--TELEGRAPHS. 81

Other important canals are (I) the Bridgwater Canal, connecting Manchester and the Mersey, the first large canal made in England, having been completed in 1760; (2) The Grand Trunk Canal, which joins the Mersey and the Trent; (3) The Grand Junction Canal, which runs from the Thames at Brentford to the Trent; (4) The Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which joins the Yorkshire Ouse and the Mersey; (5) the Kennet and Avon, which connects Bristol with the Thames; (6) The Oxford Canal, joining the Thames and the Trent; (7) The Trent and Mersey Canal; (8) The Shropshire Union Canal, and many other useful waterways.

SCOTCH CANALS are, from the nature of the country, neither numerous nor long, the principal being the Forth and Clyde Canal, the Caledonian Canal, the Crinan Canal, and the Union Canal.

The two principal canals are the Forth and Clyde Canal, connecting the Clyde near Renfrew with the Forth near Grangemauth, and the Caledonian Canal, through Glenmore, the three lochs in which are joined by about twenty-three miles of cuttings, thus affording a passage from the Atlantic to the North Sea without rounding the northern coast of Scotland. The Crinan Canal, across the peninsula of Cantire, enables vessels to pass from Loch Fyne to the Atlantic Ocean, without passing round the Mull of Cantire. The Union Canal connects Edinburgh and Glasgow, and is now chiefly used for the conveyance of minerals.

IRISH CANALS have a total length of about 30o miles, or rather more than those of Scotland, but scarcely one-tenth those of England.

The Royal Canal and the Grand Canal, constructed by the Government at a cost of 3 millions sterling, to connect Dublin with the Shannon, the former via Mullingar and the latter via Tullamore, are splendid examples of canalization.

There are also the Belfast, Ulster, and Newry Canals, and other smaller waterways.

POSTS AND TELEGRAPI-IS: The British postal and tele-

graphic services are the most complete and efficient in the world.

There are also Telephone Exchanges in nearly all the great centres of population.

The Postal and Telegraphic Services are Government monopolies, but the Telephonic Service, which is rapidly extending, is mainly worked by private companies, as also are the numerous submarine cables which connect the United Kingdom with the Continent and America.

There are nearly 20,000 Post Offices, and 25,000 road and pillar letter-boxes in the United Kingdom, and the Postal Service, which has its headquarters at the General Post Ofiice (St Martin's le Grand), in London, employs 72,000 officers on the permanent staff, besides 59,000 persons who do not hold per- manent positions.

The enormous number of 1,7941% millions of letters-an average of 47 letters for every inhabitant—244 million post-cards, 535 million book-packets, and 162 million newspapers, was delivered in the United Kingdom in 1892-3, and during the same period the Parcels Post conveyed not less than 52 million parcels.

The Post Office also does a large banking business. In 1892, the Post Ofiee Savings Banks-capital, 75% millions sterling—received nearly 25 millions sterling, and paid over 2o millions sterling. In the following year, over