Caledonian Canal

“ Since their acquisition of the canal, the Caledonian Railway Company have spent large sums annually in maintaining it in a state of efficiency, and its general condition to-day is better than when it was taken over. Much of the traffic handled is brought into or sent out from Grangemouth, and here the Caledonian Railway Company have more than doubled the accommodation, with the result that the imports and exports have enormously increased. ”

“ This was doubtless owing, in a great measure, to the rapid changes which occurred in the system of navigation shortly after the projection of the undertaking. For these Telford was not responsible. He was called upon to make the canal, and he did so in the best manner. Engineers are not required to speculate as to the commercial value of the works they are required to construct; and there were circumstances connected with the scheme of the Caledonian Canal which removed it from the category of mere commercial adventures. ”

“ Two bodies of commissioners were appointed to superintend and make provision for carrying out his recommendations, which included the construction of the Caledonian canal in the central glen already mentioned, and, what was still more urgently needed, extensive road-making and bridge-building in the highlands and northern counties of Scotland. Telford was appointed engineer of the Caledonian canal, the whole cost of which was to be defrayed by parliamentary grants. ”

“ Steam navigation especially demands attention. Difficult, perhaps even impossible, upon ordinary canals, where it causes an agitation which rapidly destroys the banks, it is organized on the Caledonian Canal, and presents nothing but advantages. With a speed of 11,000 to 12,000 met. per hour, all that has been observed is a general plashing, which is not more than that produced by a moderately gentle wind. ”

“ Our concern is with a matter of fact, and not with a theory. No ship-owner on the Great Lakes considers it a serious hindrance to navigation for vessels to pass through the lock of the "Soo" Canal; no shipper running 1,000-ton barges through the future Erie Canal will have the least apprehension of danger or destruction; no captain navigating a vessel or boat through the proposed deep waterway from the ocean to the Lakes will hesitate to pass through locks with a proposed lift of over forty feet. ”

“ In more recent times a great deal of the material that was once carried thus has been diverted to the railway ; but bulky country products such as firewood, palm leaves, cocoanut fibre, and bamboos are still transported by the leisurely barge that is towed and punted between the high banks of the canals and over the glassy water of the Cooum. Appearances are nowhere more deceptive than in the East. The canal looks an ideal stream for the house-boat, but it is hot and stifling. ”

“ Despite the increase in railway facilities, the waterways remain important factors in the transportation of the country. Steamers ply on lakes and rivers in every province, and even in the far northern districts of Yukon and Mackenzie. Where necessary obstacles are surmounted by canals, on which over £22,000,000 have been spent, chiefly since federation. The St Lawrence 151 river canal system from Lake Superior to tide water overcomes a difference of about 600 ft., and carries large quantities of grain from the west to Montreal, the head of summer navigation on the Atlantic. ”

“ For reasons which will be indicated later on, it is impossible to improve the Black Country canals on any large scale; but, in addition to what I have already related, the London and North-Western Railway Company are constantly spending money on small improvements, such as dredging, widening waterway under-bridges, taking off corners, and putting in side walls in place of slopes, so as to give more space for the boats. In the latter respect many miles have been so treated, to the distinct betterment of the canal. ”

“ But we must not overlook the growth in passenger traffic. The sea-passage round by the canal from Europe to the Pacific states of North America will be much cheaper and to many people more pleasant than the fatiguing transcontinental railway journey. Fresh brain and muscle will enter Canada by its western portals, new needs will arise, new industries spring up, a new æon of progress and enterprise begin on the far Pacific slopes when the first vessel mounts and descends the mighty steps of this wonder-working isthmian highway. ”

“ It appears to be among the “things not generally known” that Canada has, relatively to the trade and population of the Dominion, one of the most extensive and perfect systems of canal communication in existence. The really important canals are few in number, and the traffic that they transport is by no means so considerable as that carried on many of the canals of the United States and some European countries. ”

“ In dealing with the shortening of sea routes it was shown that the greatest reduction was that between the two coasts of North America, but even so the sea route remains longer than that by land, so that the question of commercial advantage is not settled by a mere statement of sea distances, and the indisputable and undiluted advantages of the Canal route for the Atlantic and Gulf [Pg 165] ports of North America are those of commerce with the Pacific coast of South America, with New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Northern China, Manchuria, and Eastern Siberia. ”

“ Each of these three locks has, of course, a duplicate alongside, permitting, as at Gatun, the simultaneous passage of a companion vessel, or of one passing in the opposite direction. In case of repairs to one set of locks the parallel set would maintain the waterway.
The lift of the lower lock at Milaflores is variable, depending upon the level of the tidal water in the last reach of the Canal. The extreme range of the tide at La Boca, the Pacific entrance to the Canal, is 20 feet; that is to say, low water during "spring" tides is 10 feet below the average sea-level. ”

“ Some of it has been utilized in reclaiming land; much has been carried out to sea and heaped into a break-water three miles long, which runs out from the Panama or southern end of the Canal, and will check a coast-ways current that might, if uncontrolled, silt up the approach. The Canal is a triumph, not of man's hands, but of machinery. ”

“ But upon the proposal as just stated there are two important remarks to be made—the first, that the suggested expenditure of 12,000l. per mile would only give us canals adapted for the navigation of large barges or vessels of not more than 150 to 200 tons, whereas what is chiefly required is internal water communication that would enable an ordinary merchant steamer to sail right up to Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford, and other large towns; the second, that no such maritime ship canal has hitherto been constructed for less than 120,000l. per mile, including all contingencies. ”

“ Navigation on the great rivers of Canada is interrupted by numerous rapids and falls. Unless these obstructions be overcome, the magnificent water-way with which Canada is endowed will be of imperfect usefulness. At many points on the rivers and lakes canals have been constructed. The formidable impediment which the great Fall of Niagara offers to navigation is surmounted by the Welland Canal, twenty-seven miles in length, and on which, with its branches, two and a half million sterling have been expended. ”

“ Lloyd thinks that the heavy cost involved in constructing canals of sufficient size to pass craft suitable for coasting and short continental voyages would be fatal to cheap conveyance.
The largest locks hitherto constructed are those on the St. Mary’s Falls Canal, in the United States, and the Welland Canal in Canada. On the former canal the lock opened in 1851 is 515 feet in length and 80 feet wide. The great tidal lock at Eastham, on the Manchester Ship Canal, will be 600 feet long and 80 feet wide. ”

“ The cutting-through of an ocean-ship canal to the Great Lakes [Pg 272] will make seaport towns of the Canadian cities on the Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Superior. The Saskatchewan and the Red River can be canalized for 1,000 miles, and a short haul from Winnipeg will open the whole Saskatchewan valley from near the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains—downstream, but for this short portage—all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, and thence to Panama and the Pacific ports. Every transcontinental freight-rate in Canada and the United States will be reduced, and perhaps some in the middle interior. ”

“ The cry for “deeper waterways” has been in the air for many years, but never has it been louder than just now. The first enlargement of the St. Mary’s Falls Canal in 1881, and the subsequent deepening of the channels connecting the Upper Lakes had the effect, almost immediately, of doubling the tonnage of vessels plying the lakes and of producing a corresponding reduction in the rates of freight. ”

“ In addition to the cost of carrying water was that of keeping the track clear of sand, which was drifted by the wind exactly as snow is drifted in the Northern States of America, and sometimes the working of the road was suspended for several days by the sand-drifts. The present railway follows the banks of the Maritime Canal as far as Ismailia, and thence it goes along the Fresh-Water Canal, of which I will tell you.
"The idea of a canal to connect the Mediterranean and Red Seas is by no means a modern one." ”

“ In front of them were the two American canals, one now useless because of the increased size of the lake carriers, with their locks and the massive granite power-house, while work trains and dredges puffed and snorted and a thousand men worked to remove the dirt from the course of still another canal which was to have even longer locks. And back of the canals, on the left, extended the steadily growing city of the American Sault Ste. Marie. Far in the distance, to the right, they could see the Canadian canal, yet not a boat was waiting to use it. ”

“ Bryce has truly said, referring to this section, that "never before on our planet have so much labour, so much scientific knowledge, and so much executive skill been concentrated on a work designed to bring the nations nearer to one another and serve the interests of all mankind." [16] The bottom of the canal in the cut, as in the channel through Lake Gatun, [Pg 187] is 40 feet above sea-level. The highest elevation of the original surface of the ground above the centre line of the canal was 312 feet above sea-level, so that the total excavation along this saddle was 312 minus 40, or 272 feet. ”

“ Engineers of the highest standing at home and abroad have expressed themselves for or against one type or the other, but it is a question upon which no complete agreement is possible. In theory a sea-level canal has unquestionable advantages, but, practically, the elements of cost and time necessary for the construction preclude to-day, as they did in 1894, when the New Canal Company recommenced active operations, the building of a sea-level canal. ”

“ We may say that almost the whole western half of Canada, where the golden wheat frontiers are ever advancing, will face about and henceforth look west instead of east. All the corn and produce of Alberta and Western Saskatchewan will flow, not eastwards as heretofore, but to the Pacific shores, there to be shipped for transit via the canal to the southern and eastern United States, to the north and east of South America, and to the Old World over the Atlantic. ”

“ If it is an advantage to gain an hour or two in transit ten years hence by having no transisthmian shipping facilities for the ten years in the meantime, then it might as well be argued that it would be better to project a sea-level canal 300 feet wide at every point, so that the commerce of the year 2000 may be properly provided for. ”

“ From information derived from official sources in England, France, and the United States of America, it is estimated that the tonnage of vessels [Pg 17] belonging to those countries and to Holland, trading in countries to which the Canal through the Isthmus will be the shortest voyage, amount to 799,427 tons per annum; and there can be no doubt that the opening of the Canal would create a great extension of trade to the South Seas, as well as induce the owners of many of the vessels now using the navigation by the Cape of Good Hope to prefer the shorter voyage through the Isthmus ”

“ Individual Enterprise. But although there has been no general or Government scheme for Canal improvement, yet the enterprise of a few individual Companies, such as the Aire and Calder and Weaver Navigations, has shewn that an up-to-date system will command success. Such success is shewn by the Board of Trade returns for 1890, when these navigations, constituting 114 out of a total of 3,935 miles of English waterways, together carried over 10% of the total freight on English Canals, or 3,750,000 tons out of a total of 34,325,000 tons transported on our Canals. ”

“ For channel steamers going from Ireland, or the west coast of Scotland, England or Wales to the east coast or the Continent, the canal would be a decided benefit, for not only would their voyage be shortened, but the rocky and dangerous coast of the north of Scotland would be avoided. The canal would pass through the coal and oil districts of Scotland, a fact which has been adduced in favour of the scheme. ”

“ Thus the works taken over by the United States in 1904 were available for any type of canal, and the decision to adopt the 85-foot-level was not taken until 1906. Even now, or in April, 1908, at the time of my visit, when so much work has been done upon the locks, many of the rank and file of the employees still cherish the hope of a tide-level canal, and there are not wanting well-informed people, both on the Isthmus and in the States, who, while accepting the high-level scheme as inevitable, regard a tide-level canal as essentially a better thing. ”