Cleaning Regent’s Canal

Regent’s Canal.  Located just north of central London, Regent’s Canal links the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in east London. Here, a portion of the Canal is undergoing some long-needed cleaning.  Since the 1700’s, France and England led the world in Canal construction using substantially different construction methods, until their replacement by railroads in the early 1830’s.  At West Point, the new nation’s first engineering school, the Corps of Engineers selected the French method over the British technique in educating young cadets, adopting early text books on waterway and bridge construction written in French.