WELLAND CANAL CANNOT BE ENLARGED BEYOND THE CAPACITY OF ONE THOUSAND TONS.

But the Welland Canal cannot be enlarged beyond 12 feet in depth, or 1,000 tons capacity. There are two physical difficulties in the way, both of which are nearly, if not quite, insurmountable.

First. To get even that depth will require the blasting out of the channel in front of Port Claiborn, (on Lake Erie,) beneath the waters of the lake, of 1,500 feet in length, to reach the mouth of the canal. This rock is of the "black rock" series, very hard, and difficult and expensive to blast. This work alone will cost a very large sum of money, more than $3,000,000. To cut this channel down to 18 feet (the lake capacity) would involve an expense more than half sufficient to construct the entire work on the American side. In order to avoid this almost insurmountable obstacle, it is proposed to leave the lake (Erie) at Port Maitland, at the mouth of Grand River, and pass down to the old route by the Grand River feeder. This would necessitate the extension of the length of the canal to nearly fifty miles. And even then there is no harbor at that point, only a broad, open roadstead, exposed to the furious gales which often sweep over that lake.

CANNOT GET THROUGH THE "DEEP CUT" AT ALLENBURG.

Second. But another and more formidable obstacle exists at the "deep cut" at Allenburg, about fifteen miles north of Lake Erie. This "cut" is about two miles long, and between 50 and 60 feet deep. It is composed of heavy joint-clay, about 65 feet deep, underlaid with a stratum of quicksand of unknown depth. The bottom of the canal does not now extend quite through the strata, but so nearly so that almost every season of navigation vast bodies of earth slide off from the banks, partially, and sometimes entirely, closing up the canal. The pressure of these slides often causes the bottom to bilge up, and thus effectually close up the canal. These slides often come down in vast masses, without any premonition, especially in the early spring and after heavy rains. Many vessels have thus been seriously damaged; some lives reported lost. Should the canal be deepened so as to cut through the clay, the banks would at once slide in and close it up entirely. The evil is partially remedied now by locking up out of Lake Erie, about 10 feet. This necessitates a dependence entirely upon Grand River for a supply of water, which, in dry seasons or low water, is inadequate to the present necessities of the canal, and would be entirely so, at any ordinary stage of water, with the proposed enlargement. Hence, to enlarge the Wel land Canal to the proposed dimensions (1,000 tons) appears to be almost a physical impossibility, especially without the expenditure of vast sums of money; and to enlarge the same to 18 feet, the maximum navigable capacity of the lakes, would be entirely out of the question.-(Report Canadian canal commissioners, 1871, pages 68–70, and previous reports on the same subject.)

PORT DALHOUSIE, ON LAKE ONTARIO, INSUFFICIENT FOR THE TRADE OF THE LAKES.

Port Dalhousie, at the outlet of Welland Canal into Lake Ontario, is entirely inadequate to accommodate the trade even now existing, being shallow, and exposed to the furious northeast gales which often prevail on that lake. It can never be made safe or commodious without the

expenditure of large sums of money, probably equal to the whole cost of the canal on the American side, especially for the size, capacity, and draught of vessels which may and can navigate those great inland seas.

THE LENGTH OF THE CANAL, AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF USING ANY OTHER THAN CONSECUTIVE LOCKS OF LIGHT LIFT, ARE ENTIRELY INADMISSIBLE AND INSUFFICIENT FOR THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE DEMANDS AND NECESSITIES OF COMMERCE.

The length of the Welland Canal (twenty-nine and one-half miles) is entirely inadmissible, and more especially so when a much shorter line can be secured on the American side, the extremest length of which need not much exceed seven miles. It is an axiom in civil engineering at the present day, "that artificial navigation should never be substituted for a natural route, as a river, lake, or the ocean." On the American side the entire navigable portions of the Niagara River, both above and below the Falls, can be used. Improvements in lockage can and are being made in canal-navigation. It is proposed by some of the most eminent engineers of the age to overcome the entire fall from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario (316 feet) by a single lock, thereby very greatly reducing the expense of lockage, as also of operation. This improvement can never be adapted on the Welland Canal, because the descent is not all concentrated at a single point, and only at one place on the American side, to wit, at Lewiston. We shall refer to this subject again hereafter.

NIAGARA FALLS.

If

All the prior discussion of this question of continuous steam-navigation to the Atlantic Ocean is only preliminary to the main question for inquiry, to wit, "the Falls of Niagara." This is the most, indeed the only, formidable obstacle on the entire route from the lakes to the ocean. this be overcome all others will be removed, almost as a matter of course. It becomes important, therefore, to go, to a very considerable extent, into the particulars of this work and the means necessary to be adopted to overcome this formidable barrier. Several routes are mentioned, all of which have several times been surveyed by the engineers of the Government. Each has its zealous friends and advocates, who claim that their proposed route is preferable to all others, and clamorously insist that it shall be adopted. All, however, that the friends and promoters of the present movement ought to insist upon, (and upon that they should most inflexibly insist.) is that the shortest, cheapest, and best route shall be adopted, leaving to the engineers to ascertain which route possesses those requisites. If that policy shall be adopted, there will then be a fair show that the shortest, cheapest, and best route will be adopted.

The following map represents Niagara River from Grand and Navy Islands, above the Falls, to Lake Ontario, with the short-line canal surveyed by Captain Williams, Colonel Blunt, and others; also the escarpment or precipitous slope at Lewiston:

From still water in the Niagara River above the Falls (near Schlosser Island) to still water in the river below, the perpendicular descent or fall is 316 feet, which must be overcome whatever route be taken; so that in this particular no one route has any advantage over its rivals.*

*The Canadian engineers report that the perpendicular descent on the line of the Welland Canal, from Port Claiborne to Port Dalhousie, is 336 feet. The descent on

The shortest direct route will be about seven miles, and will not much exceed that distance. In discussing as well as in constructing this work, one rigid, inflexible, and imperative axiom or rule should be adopted; that is, that not one mile, or one rod even, of an artificial channel shall be constructed where the natural channel of the river will answer the same purpose.

The above cut gives a bird's-eye view of the foot of Lake Erie, Niag ara River, Lake Ontario, and the short-line canal surveyed by Captain Williams in 1835, Colonel Blunt in 1867, and others. This route is found to be about 7 miles; Colonel Blunt states it at 7.05 miles; Captain Williams and others make it about the same.

The means employed to overcome the falls ought, and no doubt will, have a very great influence in locating the route. Many ingenious plans have been suggested to supersede the ordinary "combination locks" which have heretofore been adopted, both in this country and in Europe, none of which shall we discuss or refer to except to the single-lock system, and to that only briefly. In saying this we do not wish to be understood as saying, or even intimating, that no others have merits, only that we have not space to notice, much less discuss them.

THE SINGLE LOCK.

This plan is to seek out an eligible location on the plane above Lewiston, 1,000 (or so) feet from or south of the brow of the bluff or moun

Lock

TOP OF TUNNEL

the Eighteen-mile Creek (Lockport) route is 320 feet. Both of these statements are probably correct. On the Welland Canal this undoubtedly includes the lockage up out of Lake Erie. This lockage up, and then down again, is a most serious obstacle in the practicability of that route. This also precludes the possibility of using any other than the old "combination locks" to overcome the fall. There is no point along that route where the whole descent is gathered into one point, as is the case on the American side.

tain, and sink down to the requisite depth below the surface of the water in the Lower Niagara, then "drift" or "tunnel out" to the river. This will require a chamber or prism to be sunk about 350 feet deep from the surface of the ground above. This prism is to be sufficiently large to allow of the passage of six or more lake-steamers, or other craft, at the same time. This prism may be four or more hundred feet loug by two or more hundred feet wide. The tunnel thence out to the river below is to be 50 feet wide and 150 feet high, or as much less as will allow of the passage of the largest masted vessels. The mouth of the tunnel is to be closed by a steel gate 50 feet wide by 150 long, (convex toward the pressure of the water,) to be fitted into an iron frame, and to be adjusted by weights, (like a window-sash,) so that it can be made to slide up and down by a power just sufficient to overcome the friction of the rollers over which the suspending ropes or cables pass. When the gate is closed and the chamber filled, the water would force it against all its bearings with a resultant force (or full pressure) of only 58,708 tons, thus tending to tighten the gate equally against all its bearings. It is claimed by its friends that a gate constructed of steel plates properly put together, from two to six inches thick, with the convexity against the water, will withstand all the pressure of that immense column of water.

CHAMBER, HOW FILLED.

To fill this chamber it is proposed to place cast-iron tubes two feet in diameter (50 or more) around the face of the chamber at the head gate, reaching down the breast wall and along the bottom of the chamber. In the horizontal parts of these tubes there are to be orifices, allowing several hundred (or thousard) jets of water to issue upward, thus lifting the vessels by their upward force, distributed and applied equally all over the bottom of the prism or lock, to the upper level. The excellence of this arrangement is that the upward lift is steady and uniform, without any surging or violent commotion always resulting from letting in the water from horizontal or lateral sluices. By similar arrangements the waters are discharged from the chamber. The filling and emptying the lock through these tubes is regulated and controlled by a system of rotatory valves.

ANOTHER PLAN IS PROPOSED, DISPENSING ENTIRELY WITH THE TUBES AND THEIR COMPLICATED MACHINERY.

This plan is thus arranged: At a proper distance ahead of the "head gate" of the lock sink a shaft in the prism of the canal, of suitable dimensions-10, 20, or more feet in diameter-to the level of the bottom of the prism or lock; thence run a tunnel into the latter. The mouth of this tunnel is closed by an iron (or steel) gate, which is opened or shut similar to the gate of a saw or other mill flume. The bottom of the prism, at the proper distance below the requisite draught or depth of water, is floored over with timbers or planking of sufficient strength to resist the upward pressure of water. This floor, or diaphragm," is "perforated" with the requisite number of orifices, through which the water issues upward as by the other arrangement. The space between this floor and the bottom of the prism should be ten or more feet, so as to obviate or neutralize the lateral or surging motion of the water as it issues from the tunnel. This plan will dispense entirely with all the complicated machinery of the other arrangement, to which many scientific men object as "too complicated." By this arrangement it is claimed

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