orty years were a period of great activity
in canal building, but it was left to private enterprise, with very
little aid from the government. Over a hundred canal acts were passed by
Parliament before the year 1800. The largest canal of the British Isles
is the Caledonian, extending from Inverness to Fort William, a distance
of sixty-three miles. It was commenced in 1803 and completed in 1847,
and cost L1,256,000. Other canals of importance are the Great Canal,
which connects the North Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, and the Grand
Function Canal, which is over one hundred miles long and connects most
of the water-ways of central England with the Thames River. It is
estimated that there were over 2,200 miles of navigable canals in Great
Britain before the introduction of railroads.

Canal-building in Spain dates back to the beginning of the sixteenth
century, when Charles V. built the Imperial Canal of Aragon, which is
over sixty miles long. The political and commercial decline of the
country during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however,
brought the development of her highways to a standstill, and, with the
exception of Turkey, probably no European country has at the present
time more deficient transportation facilities than Spain.

The comparatively high state of civilization which existed in the
Italian cities during the middle ages, their commercial and industrial
thrift and the importance of Rome as the metropolis of the Catholic
Church combined to maintain many of the excellent ancient highways of
Italy. A number of canals were built in Northern Italy as early as the
fifteenth century, and it is claimed by some writers that locks were
first used on the Milanese canals in 1497. But while public
thoroughfares have always been well maintained in Northern Italy and
even as far south as Naples, they were during the past two or three
centuries permitted to greatly deteriorate in the southern part of the
peninsula, to the great detriment of both agriculture and commerce. The
condition of the large Italian islands is still more lamentable, Sicily
and Sardinia being almost entirely devoid of roads. She that was the
granary of ancient Rome to-day scarcely produces enough grain to supply
her own people.

Denmark and the Scandinavian peninsula had a good system of highways
long before the railroad era. Among the many excellent canals of Sweden
may be mentioned the Goeta Canal, which was commenced by Charles XII. in