Stirling had made themselves the sole members of the Committee of Management and John and James—a majority of two votes out of three—increased the canal tolls to the maximum legally allowed. This led to litigation within the family, and also later from William Dixon, who had coal and iron works near the east end of the canal. Industrial development The full opening of the canal encouraged a huge increase in coal mining in the area, and the rise of the ironworks around Coatbridge both resulted from the existence of the canal, and encouraged further development of coal and ironstone extraction. The early coalmining activity was on the Faskine and Palacecraig estates, which were on the eastern extension. In 1820 the city of Glasgow was consuming "half a million tons of coal a year, almost all of it subject to the high tolls on the Monkland Canal". In 1828 a rival company claimed that The Monkland Canal had "for many years yielded a dividend of Cent. per Cent ... arising solely on its Tolls on coal". The iron industry was given a considerable boost when Blackband ironstone was discovered by David Mushet near Coatbridge in 1805 or 1806. The hot blast process of iron ore smelting was invented by James Beaumont Neilson, introduced in 1828. Several large ironworks were established in the Coatbridge area, seven blast furnaces in 1830, rising to 46 by 1840. These developments led to a vast and rapid increase in the industrial development in the Coatbridge area, focused on iron production and iron manufacturing. This led to a huge increase in demand for iron ore and coal from the pits in the area, and the Monkland Canal was able to transport it: coal carried in 1793 had been 50,000 tonnes, rising to a million tonnes by 1850. In order to better serve the ironworks, four branches were constructed at the upper end of the canal. The branches to Calder Ironworks and Gartsherrie Ironworks were both about a mile (1.6 km) long, while those to Langloan Ironworks and Dundyvan Ironworks were about long. Competition from railways From 1828, railways started to be built; at first these did not directly compete with the canal, and the canal used the railways, and short tramways, as feeders, encouraging the connection: "the Canal company were not slow to avail themselves of these iron pathways as feeders to their own trade; and accordingly,