“Inland Navigations in Europe.”
HARTLEY ON INLAND NAVIGATIONS IN EUROPE. 101 19 March, 1885. Sir FEEDEEICK J. BEAMWELL, F.B.S., President, in the Chair. "Inland Navigations in Europe." By Sir CHARLES A. HARTLEY, K.C.M.G., M. Inst. C.E. THE subject on which the Council has done me the honour to ask me to lecture this evening is so vast in its scope that I fear that in whatever way it may be treated, in the short space of time at the disposal of a lecturer, the result cannot fail to disappoint a portion at least of his audience. With a view to minimise this natural feeling of disappointed expectation, I think it best to announce at once that my remarks to• night, instead of referring, as might naturally be expected, almost solely to inland navigation in connection with the United Kingdom, will direct your attention almost exclusively to certain important inland navigations and river improvements on the continent of Europe (Plate 2), with which, owing to my avocations abroad for a period of nearly thirty years, I am in a measure practically acquainted. In other words, I naturally prefer to confine my observations almost wholly, and with but one exception, to that part of the subject of my lecture on which I have some direct knowledge, namely, to systems of large river navigations in Europe—for time will not allow me to allude even in the briefest way to navigations in other quarters of the globe—rather than to dwell at length on the more popular subject of home navigations, concerning which the majority of my audience are doubtless already much better informed than myself, or, in any case, may speedily become so after reference to the many excellent publica• tions on rivers and canals to be found in every public library, and especially on the well-stocked shelves of this Institution.
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