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Dear List, Not exactly a mining query, but related: Charles Vancouver in his 'General View of the Agriculture of the County of Devon', published in 1808, described (pages 381-383) the intention to terminate the Tavistock Canal above Morwellham with a double inclined plane, the double chains of which were "proposed to operate from the inclined planes in drawing the vessels through the [canal] tunnel...........and so many of them will be connected and drawn through the tunnel together, as is equal to the power produced by the descending loads on the inclined plane." This system was never put into practice, although a system of cable haulage using a pair of water wheels was later tried in the 1.5 mile tunnel in the 1850s. Has anyone ever come across any similar haulage system either proposed or used, or was John Taylor just trying to be clever?! Robert Waterhouse