required for its own canal, provided that the Monkland Canal received enough water to maintain navigability. The Monkland Company was obliged to keep its canal open as a watercourse, this being a first charge on it; and it was authorised to extend from Sheepford "to the Calder at or near Faskine or Woodhill Mill and to erect sufficient locks to make it navigable". The Act authorised the Monkland company to raise an additional £10,000 of capital. The new works are undertaken The extension to the River Calder was to cost £2,857 5s 0d and the locks at Blackhill £3,982. The cut off junction was to be funded by the Forth and Clyde. The cut off junction was opened on 17 October 1791; at four feet deep it was the same as the Monkland Canal, although the main line of the Forth and Clyde was deeper. The extension to the Calder was completed in 1792 at a cost of £3,618 16s 3d, a 26% overspend. The Blackhill locks took much longer, being completed in August 1793 although Thomson says (1794). There were four double locks, (i.e. two chambers with three pairs of gates,) each double lock having two falls of ; the total vertical interval was . More prosperous times Now at last the canal had an efficient means of fulfilling its original purpose: conveying coal from the Monkland pits to Glasgow. Talking of East Monkland in 1792, a writer says that "Twenty years ago coal sold so low as 6d. the cart load; but since the Monkland Canal was opened, it sells at 18d. the cart weighing 12 [long] cwt [610 kg]." In other words, coal extracted at Monkland now found a lucrative market in Glasgow. Meanwhile, the principal users of the canal, the owners or tacksmen, necessarily working deposits close to the canal, reduced in number. In 1793 the Statistical Account comments that the canal is unfinished, but adds: The canal trade is at present as follows: Stirling also brought 3,000 carts of dung and lime in to his agricultural estates. In subsequent years, Stirling further expanded his activity and by 1802 he was paying 75% of the tonnage dues on the canal. Meanwhile, a redistribution of shares resulted in all the shares in the canal Company being in the hands of the firm of William Stirling & Sons (52) and Andrew Stirling personally (49). Andrew, John and James