Editing River Clyde (section)

=== Deepening the Upper Clyde ===
In 1768, [[John Golborne]] advised that the river should be made narrower and the [[tidal scour|scour]] increased by constructing rubble jetties and dredging sandbanks and [[shoal]]s. Another obstacle to navigation that had to be solved was that the river divided into two shallow channels by the [[Milton Island#Dumbuck Ford|Dumbuck]] shoal near [[Dumbarton]]. After [[James Watt]]'s 1769 report describing this problem, a jetty was constructed at [[Longhaugh Point]] to block off the southern channel. This turned out to be insufficient to solve the problem, so in 1773, a training wall called the [[Lang Dyke]] was built on the Dumbuck shoal to stop water flowing over into the southern channel of the river.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, hundreds of jetties were built out from the banks of the river between Dumbuck and the [[Broomielaw]] quay in Glasgow proper. In some cases, this construction had the effect of deepening the river, because the increased flow of the newly constrained water wore away the river bottom. In other cases, [[dredging]] was required to deepen the river.<ref>{{cite EB1911 | wstitle = Glasgow | volume = 12 | pages = 84}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Riddell | first=John F | editor= Goodman, David| title= The European Cities and Technology Reader | year=1999 | publisher=Routledge in association with the Open University | location=London | isbn=0-415-20082-2 | pages=57–63 |chapter= Improving the Clyde: the eighteenth century phase
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title =Making the Clyde | work =Best Laid Schemes | url =http://www.bestlaidschemes.com/river/river-clyde/glasgow-made-the-clyde/clip-1/ | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20060118051129/http://www.bestlaidschemes.com/river/river-clyde/glasgow-made-the-clyde/clip-1/ | url-status =dead | archive-date =18 January 2006 | access-date =10 May 2007 | df =dmy-all }}</ref>

In the mid-19th century, engineers took on the task of dredging the Clyde much more extensively. They removed millions of cubic feet of [[silt]] to deepen and widen the channel. The major stumbling block encountered by that project was a massive [[intrusive rock|geological intrusion]] known as [[Elderslie Rock]].<ref name="EveningTimes1886">{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2MI-AAAAIBAJ&sjid=eUwMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4013%2C5210378|title=Removal of Elderslie Rock|date=11 March 1886|work=The Glasgow Herald|access-date=8 April 2016}}</ref> Because that rock increased the project's difficulty, the work was not completed until the 1880s. Around this time, the Clyde became an important source of inspiration for artists, such as [[John Atkinson Grimshaw]] and [[James Kay (artist)|James Kay]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Macmillan|first=Duncan|title=Scottish Art in the 20th Century|year=1994|publisher=Mainstream Publishing|location=Edinburgh|pages=31–32|isbn=1-85158-630-X}}</ref> who were interested in painting scenes that depicted the new industrial era and the modern world.