First edition. Text German. Rare, particularly with plates hand-coloured. The final leaf provides a key for the colours used on the plates, and instructions for the binder. A substantial and early German-language study of Britain’s rapidly developing canal network, produced at the height of the Canal Age. Johann Ludwig Hogrewe (1737-1814) was a highly regarded Hanoverian military engineer who served in the Hanoverian Engineer Corps. Commissioned by the British Hanoverian King George III, he was tasked with surveying and documenting England's canal system. Hogrewe provides one of the first systematic continental surveys of English canal construction following the pioneering 1759 Bridgewater Canal, describing the engineering, routes, commercial purpose, and economic effects of the major waterways then completed or underway. The work is notable not only as an important source for early British industrial transport history, but also for its ambitious “Versuch einer Geschichte der inländischen Schiffahrt,” an early attempt to trace the history of inland navigation, together with a comparative account of all known navigable canals within and beyond Europe up to the date of publication. A valuable reference for collectors and scholars of canal engineering, early industrialisation, transport history, and Anglo-German scientific exchange, and an uncommon title on the market.