BRINDLEY, James., a celebrated engineer, was born at Thornsett, Derbyshire, in 1716. His parents were in very humble circumstances, andhe received little or no education. At the age of seventeen he was apprenticed to a millwright near Macclesfield, and while in this employment manifested remarkable mechanical talent. Soon after completing his apprenticeship he set up in business for himself as a wheelwright, and quickly became famous for his ingenuity and skill in repairing all kinds of machinery. In 1752 he designed and set up an engine for draining some coal-pits at Clifton in Lancashire. Three years later he extended his reputation by completing the machinery for a silk-mill at Congleton. About 1754 Brindley became acquainted with the duke of Bridgewater, and an arrangement was soon come to whereby he undertook to carry out that nobleman’s scheme of inland navigation. The duke’s primary object was the carriage of coal from his estate at Worsley to Manchester. The difficulties in the way were great, but all were surmounted by the genius of Brindley, whose crowning triumph waβ the carrying the new canal over the River Irwell at Barton, by means of an aqueduct elevated 39 feet above the water. The great success of this canal, the first of its kind in Great Britain, encouraged similar projects, and Brindley was soon engaged extending his first work to the Mersey. He then designed and nearly completed what he called the Grand Trunk Canal, connecting the Trent and Humber with the Mersey. The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, the Oxford Canal, the Stockwith and Chesterfield Canal, were all planned and carried out by him. His excessive toil broke down his strength, and he died in 1772 at the early age of fifty-six. Brindley was a man of no education; he retained ...