As to the reasons that have led the author to undertake the publication of the present volume, a remark or two may be permitted. In 1875 he undertook the preparation of a work[5] on the growth of the railway system up to that time for the Directors of the North-Eastern Railway, on the occasion of their celebration at Darlington of the Jubilee of the Stockton and Darlington line—the first passenger railway constructed in this country on which locomotives were employed. In inquiring into the history of that railway, he was struck with the importance that was attached half a century before to the possession of canal navigation, and with the great facilities that it afforded to the districts through which it was carried. Since then he has from time to time had occasion to look into the same subject, and especially so in 1882, when he was required to give evidence before the Select Committee on Railway Rates and Fares,[6] as to the differences that exist on English and Continental railways in the charges made for the transport of heavy traffic. He found also that, notwithstanding the lower rates of transport on Continental railways, very great importance was attached to the maintenance, in a high state of efficiency, of the waterways of all other countries in Europe except our own, and that in most other countries the State specially charged itself with the duty of seeing that this was effectually done. It was but a short step from the acquisition of this knowledge to the natural endeavour to ascertain why English canals were not deemed equally important to the trade and commerce of the greatest of commercial nations. The results of that inquiry are set forth in the following pages; but the author has not been content to examine the economic side of the case alone. Finding not only that the canals of the world had a most interesting history, which has never hitherto been set forth in the form of a continuous narrative, but that one of the most remarkable movements of the present time was a demand for artificial waterways, in order to reduce both the time and the distance now required for the intercourse of different important centres of our planet, and give inland towns a more direct connection with the sea, he has devoted much research to the investigation of the origin and growth of these enterprises, and has set down the results in as interesting and useful a form as he could.