(subscription or UK public library membership required) (subscription or UK public library membership required) At the time, the only means of bulk transport between the two towns other than animal-drawn carts was water transport on the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, the Bridgewater Canal and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, all of which were slow and expensive to use; (subscription or UK public library membership required) transporting raw cotton the 35 miles from Liverpool to Manchester was as expensive as the initial cost of shipping it from America to Liverpool.