Ship canal

“ 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. ”

“ With regard to the construction of canals, that must be regulated by the quantity of trade to be passed, and the charges that it will bear; but, within certain limits, the larger the canal the better. In the case of ship canals for seaborne vessels, it is advisable to construct them wherever they can be made at a reasonable cost, and there is traffic enough to pay a fair interest upon the capital. ”

“ There is one class of canals that seems to have held its own, that is ship canals. The great canal and locks at Sault Ste. Marie transfer a vast lake traffic annually from one level to another between Lakes Superior and Huron. Vast quantities of iron-ore are brought in mammoth vessels by this route from docks near the Mesaba mines for the great iron mills at Gary, at Cleveland, at Pittsburgh, and other points. Similar vessels loaded with wheat, oats, and flax from the Northwest grain fields are unloaded at Buffalo for transportation to the seaboard. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In a boat canal of small section, the plant required is small and simple, but in large ship-canal sections very large and powerful machinery and elaborate power plants supplying compressed air and electricity arc employed. In small canals soft-ground excavation is commonly performed by means of shovels and plows for loosening the material, and scrapers and carts for carrying it from the excavation. In larger canals this plant is increased by the addition of grading and excavating machines and steam-shovels loading into carts or cars hauled by horses or light locomotives. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For the purposes of the projected Sheffield and Goole Ship Canal it is proposed to acquire several of the old navigations, including the Dearne and Dove Canal, the Stainforth and Keadby Canal, and other waterways. Other improved canals have been suggested, and Mr. Samuel Lloyd has advocated the construction of a great national canal which would connect all the principal industrial centres of the kingdom with each other and with the sea. There appears to be no insuperable difficulty in the way of realising such a project. Capital alone is wanted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Its waters are black and smell to Heaven on hot days, and the great locks, swing-bridges, and the like, although wonderful engineering feats, are not improvements upon the landscape. But they have57 a majesty of their own, and if you voyage down the Ship Canal, duly holding your nose, you will be much impressed. You will be even more impressed if you don’t hold it. A succession of docks, lairages, grain elevators and coal-shoots lines this Acherontean tideway: everything equipped with machinery that performs marvels in a quiet, unostentatious, matter-of-fact manner. ”

“ Although at first sight it may appear to be a work of supererogation, to carry the Canal over that part of the Isthmus which is traversed by navigable rivers, it is by many engineers considered preferable in forming a Canal, to use the rivers in its vicinity only for the purpose of supplying the Canal with water, and not as a continuation of the inland navigation, on account of the variation in the depth of rivers from floods, or other accidents. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The curvature in the proposed sea-level canal is gentle, but for 19 miles of its course a large ship would continually be changing direction in a channel having a width of from one-fourth to one-fifth of her own length and in a current which may be as great as 5 feet per second. On the Manchester Canal all large vessels are aided by two tugs whose duty it is to help in steering. ”

“ There will be big supply depots where ships can get any kind of stores they need from a few buckets of white lead to an anchor or a hawser; a laundry in which a ship's wash can be accepted at the hour it begins its transit of the canal, for delivery by railroad at the other end before it is ready to resume its ocean journey; an ice plant which will replenish the cold storage compartments of ships lacking such facilities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This enormous gain in efficiency, resulting from the avoidance of the slightest difference in level and from the reduction of force wasted in friction, suggested to people in early times the idea of establishing channels for water where none had previously existed, that is, of building canals. Locks, for controlling the flow and level of the water, were invented toward the end of the Middle Ages, and a considerable extent of canals had been constructed on the Continent before the Bridgewater canal, described above, was opened in England. ”

“ On many waterways, and especially in countries which have limited railway facilities, like Russia, canals are found as well adapted as railways to all purposes of transport. On the canals of the United States, the canals compete with the railways in carrying wheat and other agricultural produce. On the Aire and Calder canal, the canal boats are adapted to carry, and as a matter of fact do carry, considerable quantities of general merchandise, as well as minerals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Longer canals have been made both in Europe and in the United States, but no canal hitherto completed has been built of the same large dimensions, nor has any other canal cost so considerable a sum of money. It is not too much to say that no other waterway has been more important to commerce, nor has any other been attended with the same momentous and permanent political consequences. It is satisfactory to be able to add that few waterways of modern times have been so successful from a financial point of view. ”

“ 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 cost of the undertaking (estimated at 25,000,000l. to 30,000,000l.) , although a large sum, is not deemed to be too much for a great artificial river more than 300 miles long, 18 feet deep, 100 feet wide at the bottom, and having locks 450 feet long and 60 feet wide. These dimensions would enable the canal to float the largest vessels that navigate the great lakes from Lake Erie to the deep waters of the Hudson. ”

“ It is kept in a much better state for navigation, so far as the depth of water is concerned, than the old canal, which from inattention is gradually shoaling in places; consequently the regular steam-packets which ply between Elizabeth City and Norfolk, as well as steamers whose destinations are further north, have given up the use of the Dismal Swamp Canal, and [150] now go round through Albemarle Sound up the North River, thence by a six-mile cut into Currituck Sound, up North Landing River, and through the new canal to the Elizabeth River and into Chesapeake Bay. ”

“ I now commenced an unexciting row of forty-two miles to Bordentown, on the Delaware, where this artificial watercourse ends.
This canal is much travelled by steam tugs towing schooners of two hundred tons, and by barges and canal-boats of all sizes drawing not above seven feet and a half of water. The boats are drawn through the locks by stationary steam-engines, the use of which is discontinued when the business becomes slack; then the boatmen use their mules for the same purpose. To tow an average-sized canal-boat, loaded, requires four mules, while an empty one is easily drawn by two. ”

“ Boats of 163 feet by 29 feet 6 inches can also travel on the Gloucester and Birmingham Navigation, while the Severn can take craft of 270 feet by 35 feet, and the Thames, from London Bridge, can carry vessels of 140 feet by 22 feet. Again, on part of the Kennett and Avon Canal, craft of 120 feet by 18 feet can be navigated. Mr. Lloyd, who has had a great deal of experience in canal navigation, has proposed the adoption of improved locks on the leading English canals capable of taking boats 110 feet long, 111⁄2 feet wide, and 6 feet draught, the carrying capacity being about 120 tons. ”

“ There will thus be two waterways at right angles to reach each other, one longitudinal for the passage of vessels only, and one transverse, for the passage of water only. This avoids the expense of maintaining the paddles in the lock gates, and all the risks attending longitudinal currents. The canal should be widened above and below by floating pontoons, not by fixed walls. The height of the lift may be varied as required up to 30 feet; a lift of 33 feet has been worked for twenty-five years with ease and safety. ”

“ And so, whether we shall drag over cold water, or let hot water drag us, is one way of putting the question between canal and steam communication for conveyance of our heavy traffic. The canal-boat uses its water cold without, the steam-engine requires it hot within. Before hot water appeared in its industrial character to hiss off the cold, canals had all the glory to themselves. They are not yet hissed off their old stages and cat-called into contempt by the whistle of the steam-engine, for canal communication still has advantages of its own, and canal shares are powers in the money market. ”

“ 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. ”