Navigable waterway

“ To crown the whole, where can a country be pointed out which possesses such an extent of internal navigation? A chain of river navigation and navigable inland seas, which, with the canals recently constructed, gives to the countries bordering on them all the advantages of an extended sea-coast, with a greatly diminished risk of loss from shipwreck! ”

“ Eventually, large rivers, under favourable conditions, often furnish important natural highways for inland navigation in the lower portion of their course, as, for instance, the Rhine, the Danube and the Mississippi; and works are only required for preventing changes in the course of the stream, for regulating its depth, and especially for fixing the low-water channel and concentrating the flow in it, so as to increase as far as practicable the navigable depth at the lowest stage of the water-level. ”

“ Inland navigation is in fact to the same community what exterior navigation is to the great family of mankind. As the ocean connects the nations of the earth, by the ties of commerce and the benefits of communication, so do lakes, rivers, and canals operate upon the inhabitants of the same country: and it has been well observed, that "were we to make the supposition of two states, the one having all its cities, towns, and villages upon navigable rivers and canals, and having an easy communication with each other ”

“ On the imposing expanse of the great estuary the traffic of the port where so much of the world’s work and the world’s thinking is being done becomes insignificant, scattered, streaming away in thin lines of ships stringing themselves out into the eastern quarter through the various navigable channels of which the Nore lightship marks the divergence. The coasting traffic inclines to the north; the deep-water ships steer east with a southern inclination, on through the Downs, to the most remote ends of the world. ”

“ The stream, which, like nearly all Martial rivers, is wide and shallow, had during the last fifty miles of our course grown narrower, with a depth at the same time constantly lessening, so that some care was required on the part of the pilot to avoid running aground. A stream of twenty inches in depth, affording room for two boats to pass abreast, is considered navigable for vessels only carrying passengers; thirty inches are required to afford a course which for heavy freight is preferable to the road. ”

“ The exigiencies of their trade calling imperatively for further improvements, the engineers furnished them with the design for a new ship canal, which reduces the navigable distance to 151⁄2 miles, on a course about west from Amsterdam to the North Sea, available for larger vessels than formerly entered the port—and has provided a new harbour on the coast, with an area of 250 acres, bounded by breakwaters formed of concrete blocks set in regular courses, with 853 feet of entrance between the pier heads, and 261⁄4 feet minimum depth of water. ”

“ Even in the most favourable conditions of tide or water supply, the boats had to be dragged up and down the stream by men, who did the work of beasts of burden until the construction of the rival waterway led to the navigation proprietors employing horses or mules instead. ”

“ Branches of the Nile and the canals which in the maps cover the Delta with such a network of blue lines are also of great value, but the number of canals which are perennially navigable is limited, and the canal barge is nowhere renowned for speed, while sailing boats cannot use certain canals at all in the dry season, and their use of others is often attended by the risk of grounding. ”

“ Where the topographical conditions are such that bridges can be made of such heights, without prohibitive cost, as to permit, at all navigable stages of water, the passage of boats best suited to the river commerce, it is for the best interest of both the land traffic and the river traffic that bridges be so constructed. ”

“ Where streams are large enough to be navigable industrial considerations often prevent the utilization of their power, the streams being more serviceable as highways than as sources of power. Other things being equal, it follows that streams are most available for water-power when they are large enough to have a moderately steady flow, and not so large as to be beyond ready control, or to be valuable for purposes of navigation. ”

“ If it be capable in its natural state of being used for purposes of commerce, no matter in what mode the commerce may be conducted, it is navigable in fact, and becomes in law a public river or highway. Vessels of any kind that can float upon the water, whether propelled by animal power, by the wind, or by the agency of steam, are, or may become, the mode by which a vast commerce can be conducted, and it would be a mischievous rule that would exclude either in determining the navigability of a river. ”

“ The canals which have been cut in various directions are also found useful in the traffic which is carried on between place and place, both amongst the people themselves and with foreigners. The conflux of water at the flood-tides is also valuable, as rendering navigable the isthmuses which separate the different pieces of water, thus making it possible to ferry over from the rivers into the estuaries, and from the estuaries into the rivers. Their trade is wholly carried on with Italy and Rome. ”

“ It was very quickly discovered that the vessel was next to useless on a shallow canal—the section of that particular waterway only averages from 40 feet to 50 feet in width at the surface, with flat sloping sides under water, tapering down to a mid-channel or gutter with an average depth of only 41⁄2 feet—inasmuch as with that depth (in mid-channel only) a screw propeller of sufficient diameter could not be used to utilise the power of the engines without a very great amount of “slip” and churning of the water instead of doing useful work. ”

“ To our left, a channel lies under giant steel bridges. Our course is not there: we are piloted towards a dock for passenger and cargo ships, and entering it in a hot glare, and colouring that almost sears, of sky and water and paint, we make our berth, wallowing once over the water’s breadth to the anger of lesser navigators, who go by in their boats bawling at the bridge in general. The handsome passenger boats with their great paddle-wheels and their red awnings lie opposite our plebeian resting-place: beside a grimy wharf, where small cranes and coal carts seem to multiply. ”

“ One is to build it and let the water in to the foot of the hill, and then to raise vessels over, the crest of the hill, and down the other side to where the canal again starts, by means of inclined planes, or marine railways.
The other method is by "locks," as they are called. That is, there are built a series of basins with powerful, water-tight gates dividing them. Boys who live along canals well know how locks work.
A boat comes along until it reaches the place where the lock is. It is floated into a basin, or section, of the waterway, and a gate is closed behind it. ”

“ Bridges and tunnels carry us over and under rivers, across ravines and through mountains. On the water, the canoe and the rowboat, the sailing vessel and the steamship, are at our disposal. Naphtha launches and electric yachts glide across the water. Harbors are dredged, lighthouses are erected, breakwaters are constructed, and canals are built, all for the use of travelers and commerce. The last years of the nineteenth century form an era in travel of which the world never dreamed. ”

“ At places the ship seems to really be at sea, then she enters a canal whose lofty walls of syenite, slate, and granite shut out the light of day, and against which her rigging scrapes, and the passenger’s hand may almost touch—a hundred thousand sparkling streams fall in feathery cascades, adown their mural heights, and impetuous streams beat themselves into white foam as they leap either into the eternal depths of the Pacific or its deep arms. ”

“ In determining the navigable character of the New River it is proper to consider the feasibility of interstate use after reasonable improvements which might be made. [36]
Nor is it necessary for navigability that the use should be continuous. The character of the region, its products and the difficulties or dangers of the navigation influence the regularity and extent of the use. [37] Small traffic compared to the available commerce of the region is sufficient. ”

“ We see the high, steel cable strung across the river, with the running block and gang ropes connecting it with the side-railed flat barge or ferry. These floats are often propelled across stream by the force of the current. Just as a ship makes headway by the side wind running off her sails obliquely, so does a boat cross a stream by the action of the tide, if care is taken to have the boat’s head turned partly against the current. ”

“ Wharves and piers are as necessary almost to the successful use of the stream in navigation as the vessels themselves, and are to be considered as an important part of the instrumentalities of this branch of commerce. But to be of any value in this respect they must reach so far into deep water as to enable the vessels used in ordinary navigation to float while they touch them and are lashed to their sides. They must of necessity occupy a part of the stream over which a vessel could float if they were not there. ”

“ Had this opening up to navigation been completed prior to the building of the railroads along the banks of the rivers and across the mountains, it would have been of inestimable benefit to the tributary country, but until its present population shall have increased ten fold, perhaps twenty fold, and the railroads shall be unable to handle the traffic; when the waterway craft shall be aids to the railroads, not competitors, I believe transportation of freight by steamboats or by barges with tugs will be impracticable. ”

“ Most river navigations beyond the reach of tides, are impeded by shallows in summer, by floods in winter, by artificial rights of mills, drainages, &c., all of which are avoided by the Grand Junction Canal, which, availing itself of cross valleys, and perforating narrow ridges, has opened an inland navigation from the metropolis 11 to the British Channel, to the Irish Sea, and to the German Ocean. ”

“ One of the most important matters that the canal engineer and manager has to deal with, is the adoption of the form of boat best suited for the gauge of his canal and the character of the traffic to be dealt with. The majority of canals are of too limited dimensions to admit of the employment of boats of large size. Even on some of the largest rivers—such as the Thames, the Danube, and the Rhine—the size of vessels employed has to be kept down to a limit which would be deemed ridiculous for ocean-going steamers. ”

“ The navigation and drainage is under the management of commissioners, who have power to raise £5,000, on security of tolls, to be applied for the improvement of the navigation and completing it to Bishop Briggs. ”

“ Every vessel coming to anchor in any other portion of the navigable waters in the District of Columbia shall also be so moored under the direction of the harbor master, or the pilot of the police boat acting in the harbor master’s absence, as not to obstruct the channel, and be secured with an anchor at bow and stern as to keep the long axis of the vessel parallel with that of the channel and prevent it from swinging so as to obstruct the free passage of the channel by other vessels. ”

“ It might be a light-house erected on a submerged sand-bank, or a jetty pushed out into the stream to narrow the water-way, and increase the depth of water and the direction and the force of the current, or the pier of a bridge standing where vessels now pass, and where they can pass only at very high water. The impediments to navigation caused by such structures are, it is true, in one sense, obstructions to navigation; but, so far as they tend to facilitate commerce, it is not claimed that they are unlawful. ”

“ Various far-seeing, patriotic and enterprising individuals took a leading part in pioneering the movement in favour of improved river navigation which, for a period of about 100 years—until, that is, the advent of the canal era—was to be developed with much zeal and energy, though not always with conspicuous success. ”

“ Theoretically, there is no sound reason why a modern steamship on a sufficiently large tide-level canal should not transport traffic almost at the same rate as it can do on the ocean. The resistance on the canal would be less than that usually met with at sea, but, on the other hand, the dangers of steaming too quickly compel a slow rate of speed. The actual cost of transport at sea has been variously put at from 0·03 to 0·07 per ton per mile. ”

“ If a canal were carried alongside the Thames, into the heart of the city, the west end and the southern suburbs, a great deal of this outlay might be avoided. The vessel carrying the traffic could be stopped at any one of twenty places on the route of the canal, in order that she might be enabled to unload, and the relatively short distance for which the traffic would thus require to be transported from the ship’s side to the ultimate destination of the traffic would not add much to the cost of its water transport. ”

“ In Continental countries—and especially in France, Germany, Belgium, and Holland—the greatest possible importance is attached to having the command of cheap and adequate water transport, and it seems to have been allowed that there is a natural function for each system of transport—that of the railways being the conveyance of passengers and traffic that will bear a high rate of freight, while that of the waterways is to convey heavy luggage or traffic, of low intrinsic value, from point to point at a low rate of speed. ”