Allen, Grant, 1848-1899 / 2008-09-29 00:00:00
It was Telford who
formed the harbour of Wick, which has since grown from a miserable
fishing village into a large town, the capital of the North Sea herring
fisheries. It was he who enlarged the petty port of Peterhead into the
chief station of the flourishing whaling trade. It was he who secured
prosperity for Fraserburgh, and Banff, and many other less important
centres; while even Dundee and Aberdeen, the chief commercial cities of
the east coast, owe to him a large part of their present extraordinary
wealth and industry. When one thinks how large a number of human beings
have been benefited by Telford's Scotch harbour works alone, it is
impossible not to envy a great engineer his almost unlimited power of
permanent usefulness to unborn thousands of his fellow-creatures.
As a canal-maker, Telford was hardly less successful than as a
constructor of roads and harbours. It is true, his greatest work in this
direction was in one sense a failure. He was employed by Government for
many years as the engineer of the Caledonian Canal, which runs up the
Great Glen of Caledonia, connecting the line of lakes whose basins
occupy that deep hollow in the Highland ranges, and so avoiding the
difficult and dangerous sea voyage round the stormy northern capes of
Caithness. Unfortunately, though the canal as an engineering work proved
to be of the most successful character, it has never succeeded as a
commercial undertaking.
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