Welland Canal

“ But while it may be possible with a canoe to overcome such obstructions without absolute disaster, it is manifest that such risks could never be run in the everyday business of commercial transport.
For these reasons, it has, in not a few cases, been found expedient to overcome the obstructions to river navigation that are interposed by rapids or cataracts, by constructing an artificial waterway parallel to the falls, on which the rise or fall of the natural waterway is surmounted by locks or lifts. The Welland Canal performs this function in Canada, and the Gotha Canal in Sweden. ”

“ It was arranged that our party should take passage on board one of the American lake steamers at a little port on the Welland Canal. We were disguised as immigrants to the west; our arms being shipped as mining tools; and when clear of the canal, we were to rise upon the crew, and make our way to Sandusky. As the Michigan was anchored close to the main channel of the harbor, and we had provided ourselves with grapnels, it was believed that she could be carried by surprise. ”

“ Its greatest celebrity at present arises from the fact of there having been a great battle fought near by between the British and Americans in the war of 1812.
The line of navigation by the St. Lawrence did not extend beyond Lake Ontario until the Welland Canal was constructed. This important work is thirty-two miles long, and admits ships of one hundred and twenty-five guns, which is about the average tonnage of the trading-vessels on the lakes. The Niagara Strait is nearly parallel to the Welland Canal, and more than one third of it is not navigable. ”

“ By means of ship-canals, formed to avoid the obstructions to navigation caused by the rapids of the St. Lawrence, Niagara, and the Sault Sainte Marie, small vessels can load at Liverpool and discharge their cargoes on the most distant shores of Lake Superior. On the Welland canal alone, which connects Lake Erie with Lake Ontario, the tolls taken in 1853 amounted to more than 65,000_l._ In the same year 19,631 passengers and 1,075,218 tons of shipping passed through it: the traffic on the other canals is in like proportion, and is monthly on the increase. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The amount transported on the Welland Canal for that year was 1,279,987 tons.
Canadian Commerce on the Great Lakes.
Notwithstanding the large amount of money expended by the Canadian Government upon its unrivalled St. Lawrence canals and the deepening of its waterways, the volume of western traffic that comes this way is as yet disappointingly small. The great bulk of the trade in western produce, Canadian and American, finds its way to the seaboard in American vessels by way of Buffalo, Oswego and Ogdensburg to New York [Pg 284] and Boston. ”

“ The Welland Canal is, in its present state, unsuited to the purposes of modern naval warfare, and a canal is at all times, and under the most favourable circumstances, very little to be depended upon. With the aid of fortified harbours there is, however, no reason to fear for our naval supremacy on Lake Ontario, and it is to that object our best efforts should be directed. ”

“ We used to see, occasionally, the fugitives, who ventured out for exercise while waiting for an opportunity to get on one of the vessels frequently passing down the canal and river from Milan, during the season of navigation. Many of these vessels passed through the Welland Canal on their way to the lower Lakes, and after leaving the harbor at Huron the fugitives were safe from the pursuit of their masters unless the vessels were compelled by stress of weather to return to harbor. ”

“ For the season of 1893 the canal tolls for the passage of the following food products, wheat, Indian corn, pease, barley, rye, oats, flaxseed, and buckwheat, for passage eastward through the Welland Canal be 10 cents per ton, and for passage westward through the St. Lawrence canals only 10 cents per ton; payment of the said toll of 10 cents per ton for passage through the Welland Canal to entitle these products to free passage through the St. ”

“ The large traffic on the Erie Canal, between Lake Erie and the Hudson River, is conducted in barges of 250 tons; the canal has a depth of 7 feet, with a bottom width of 56 feet, and pitched side slopes of 1 to 1·5; and the locks are 110 feet long and 18 feet wide. The Welland and St. Lawrence Canals are on a larger scale, as they provide access to the coast for the large inland lakes of North America, with vessels of 1000 to 1500 tons, and therefore, like the Ghent-Terneuzen Canal, occupy a sort of intermediate position between inland and ship canals. ”

“ The canals were at last completed in accordance with the wise policy inaugurated after the union by Lord Sydenham, whose commercial instincts at once recognized the necessity of giving western trade easy access to the ocean by the improvement of the great waterways of Canada. It had always been the ambition of the people of Upper Canada before the union to obtain a continuous and secure system of navigation from the lakes to Montreal. The Welland Canal between Lakes Erie and Ontario was commenced as early as 1824 through the enterprise of Mr. ”

“ But another amicable battle is on—a battle of the eastern levels—between the men of the old French valley to the north (i.e., the St. Lawrence) and the men of the old Iroquois valleys to the south, of the Mohawk and the Hudson. In 1830 a canal was built by the latter from above the Falls to the navigable Hudson, and with high ceremony a cask of the water of Lake Erie was emptied into New York harbor as symbol of the wedding of lake and ocean. Then Canada built her Welland Canal around Niagara and made canals along the St. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Little life stirs by day on the canal; after dark the waters and the tow-path are as deserted as a village graveyard. Along the railroad by day no human foot travels but the milesman's, and at night the traffic falls off to a mere echo of its incessant mighty roar by day. The gasworks are busy, and glowing and flaming and throbbing all through the hours of gloom and darkness, but people cannot get near them. They are enclosed by high walls on all sides except one, and on that side lies the South London Canal, which crawls and crawls unhastened and unrefreshed by the waters of any lock. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Two or three short tunnels, or deep cuttings, across the Downs, are the only costly work to be done. By commencing at the sea end, all the material of the cuttings could be loaded on barges at once, carried out to sea, and then discharged; or shipped to ports where limestone is in demand. If I am not mistaken, one-half the capital required for the Channel Tunnel would suffice.
Besides communicating with Paris, such a canal would supply London with sea-water for baths and other purposes, thus covering all the conduit schemes that have from time to time been projected for this purpose. ”

“ Let us here hold on down the Wey, which henceforth takes two forms, now coinciding, then going apart, the canalised Wey Navigation, and the wilful loops that could not be made to fit the course of this water-way, for which they have suffered depletion, but in flood time can yet assert themselves by turning the low meadows into lakes. As in the case of Hogarth’s “Industrious Apprentice,” the canal has thriven so that it may be called the main stream, while it is seldom so straight-lined or business-minded but that its tow-path makes a pleasant riverside walk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The canals that have passed into the possession of the railway companies are not, as a rule, so well adapted for navigation as those controlled by independent companies. On the face of it, indeed, there is a presumption that the railways could not have acquired the property if it had been as it should have been. The only railway canals that are capable of admitting craft exceeding 84 feet in length are the Kennet and Avon, 85 miles long; the Grantham Canal, 331⁄2 miles long; and the Nottingham Canal, 15 miles in length—about 133 miles in all. ”

“ Not only does the Kennet and Avon deserve to rank as one of the best maintained of any canal in the country, but it still affords all reasonable facilities for such traffic as is available, or seems likely to be offered. Instead of being neglected by the Great Western Railway Company, it is kept in a state of efficiency that could not well be improved upon short of a complete reconstruction, at a very great cost, in the hope of getting an altogether problematical increase of patronage in respect to classes of traffic different from what was contemplated when the canal was originally built. ”

“ Then again, the speed on British canals can seldom be carried above 21⁄2 miles per hour, not to speak of the delay in getting through the locks, of which there are ninety-three between Leeds and Liverpool.
It would be the idlest of idle dreams to expect that the canal system of this or any other country, as originally constructed, can be resuscitated, or even temporarily galvanised into activity, in competition with railways. Canals as they were built a century ago have no longer any function to fulfil that is worthy of serious consideration. ”

“ Any attempt at a general revival and improvement of the canal system throughout England cannot prove financially successful, as local canals, through thinly populated agricultural districts, could not compete with railways. These routes alone should be selected for enlargement of waterway which lead direct from the sea to large and increasing towns like the proposed canal from the Bristol Channel to Birmingham, or which, like the Aire and Calder Navigation and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, are suitably set for the conveyance of coal and general bulky goods to populous districts. ”

“ All of the evidence, all of the supplementary expert testimony which may be obtained upon the merits of the two propositions, will not change the position of those who rest their conclusions upon American experience and upon the judgment of American engineers, and who favor a lock canal. While there is no doubt that such a canal can be constructed and can be made a practicable waterway, there is a very serious question whether a sea-level canal can be constructed and made a safe and practicable waterway, at least within the limits of the estimated amount of cost and within the estimated time. ”

“ Machines for facilitating excavation have been invented and used with great success.
Mr. Gallatin’s report on canals contains several estimates of the cost of contemplated ones. From Weymouth to Taunton, in Massachusetts, the expense of a canal of [Pg 92] 26 miles, with a lockage of 260 feet, is set down at $1,250,000. From Brunswick to Trenton, 28 miles, with a lockage of 100 feet, 800,000 dollars. From Christiana to Elk, 22 miles with a lockage of 148 feet, 750,000 dollars. From Elizabeth river to Pasquotank, 22 miles, with a lockage of 40 feet, 250,000 dollars. ”