New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-04-02
THE CANAL RING FIGHT.
nENIsoNs UTICA CONTRACT.

CATI0NS-RAPID WEARING ANAh Of ihk WALL
SINGULAR POSITION OF THE WALL.
ryRoM A STAFF CORRESPONDENT or THE rRBuSE1
lJrroA March ST. had heard so much, before
,,n,inr to Utica about Denison's uncompleted con-
ract for building a vertical wall along the Erle
anal in this city. that set out, yesterday morn
q. 10 make personal inspection of the work.
NOT expect my examination of it to be az critical
~, that of a professional engineer, and have no
init now that many imperfections in the work
,.caped my notice. took with me no instruments
D, A made no measurements, but had studied the
opeoifcations with considerable care and. with
hose in nv hand, made such a hasty examination
a. any citizen taxpayer might make OF the Work
hat was IN sight
The original contract. dated Sept 3, 1863, was
!, Removing the wall benches on the Erie Canal,
!. no the junction of the Chenango Canal Herewith
a, the leastern limits of the City of Utica, and for
constructing vertical wall along the BERNIE bank
Of said canal from point near Clay-st. eastward.
The original quantity sheet called for 1900 cubic
ysrds of vertical wall and no slope WALL ana the
work was to be completed on or before April w.
$50. 1t ia impossible now for any one not an
Engineer to find out anything about the excavation
chat has been done in removing the wall oenches
between the limits named, aud doubt II the former
engineers have left any data in the shape OF care
fully constructed cross-sections to show how mucn
rock or earth has been removed. heard IN Albany
dat no such records could be found. but have not
applied TO the Assistant Engineer here for them,
simply because they would be of no use to me I'M
Tess intended to make careful survey of the
canal sides and bottom. That i could not do.
only examined what was in sight.
Crossing the canal on the Genesee-st bridge,
turned Into street leading east and after several
Inquiries found the point where Clay-st crosses the
canal and then walked down the towing-path for
yearly or quite a mile. had no difficulty In dis
covering the place where Denisons contract for
building the wall began. 1t is really outside Of the
city proper that is. very little of the ground there
s occupied by buildings and long before the end OF
penison's vertical wall was reached. found myself
actually in the country and among the fields. Yer
tica walls are built along the banks of the canals in
the cities IN order that they may be used by boats
for docking purposes il is impossible to get boat
within several feet of the bank where there Is a.
slope wall. The vertical wall had very properly
been extended out from the city to point four or
live hundred feet from where DenisOn began his
work, and noticed at once the very curious cir
cumstauce that Denison's wall did not begin where
the old vertical wall ended, but that he had
left in this interval of 400 or 800 feet,
where dockage was needed much more than
further out IN the country, q stretch OF old slope
wall and believe that it rests on bench though
cradle water in the canal at the time, and am not
familiar enough with canal walls TO determine
without a closer examination than ] was able to
make whether this has been put in since the canal
was enlarged or before Why this piece OF slope
wall was left when much vertical wall has been
built beyond it / was unable TO find out. 1t was
suggested 90 that perhaps the owners of property
further out were more influential with the Canal
Commissioner OF the State Engineer when this con-
tract was let than their neigbbors.
Another strange thing that noticed was that this
vertical wall has been bnilt the bernie or south
bank of the canal while on the north or towing
path side there is a slope wall the whole distance
part of it old and part of il new discovered when
I went further down that of the last work that
DenisOn has done TO lay slope wall opposite to
tire new vertical wall What makes this particularly
strange is that while the New York Central R4ilroad
extends along the north side of the canal, parallel
with IL and only a short distance away, and while
that company owns much of the land bordering ON
the canal on that side and has long desired to have
vertical wall built there in order that they might
use il for dockage the canal authorities when they
were 20 put vertical wall only one side, chose
che south side where there is nothing but farms
and whore il can do nobody any good
except TO enhance the value of the land
and help along somebody's real estate
speculation. I have heard that State officers,
contractors and other members of the Ring have
sometimes been guilty Of putting expensive canal
announcements where they would do them the most
good aud this looks to like suspicious case that
NAV well be investigated The vertical wall ex-
amined was completed 30 that could only see its
face and there may therefore, be many lmperfec-
fions which cannot be discovered without taking
of tho top The specifications for vertical wall re-
uire that no stone less than six inches thick shall
be used in il that every stone shall have bearing
surface of at least three square feet and that one
third Of all the stones used shall be headers that
IA shall extend all of the way through the wall. In
the work examined at least one-haf OF the stones
Al number we're less than SIX inches thick,
and should think that nearly one-half Of the
face of the wall was composed of these IN
aieTsized stones. Great quantities of stone not
more than two three, OF four inches thick, are in
full sight and it requires no technical knowledge
for even the most superficial observer to that in
chs regard almost no attention whatever was paid
by the contractor to the specifications by which he
was 20 be guided. As to the bearing surface of the
stones used il was more diffcnlt 10 determine. A
stone with a square face 1900 feet each side
will have the required three square feet Of bearing
surface; II stone is narrower than that Of course
Its length must be increased in order to obtain the
REQUIRED surface. considerable proportion of the
tones which appeared in the face of this wall were
less than a foot wide. and they did not look as
though they extended in more than foot. In other
words, while know that half of the stone used in
this wall il too thin, believe that equal amount
Of il has also too small bearing surface. To find
out what proportion Of headers was used, without
the authority TO take down portion of the wall
wac also impossible but will say that If one stone
in six Of those used headers the contractor has