Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1895-11-11
GREAT ENGINEERING FEAT.
OCEAN STEAMSHIPS BETWEEN
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO.
A 5000, 100000 Ship Canal to Con-
meet Lake Erie With the Sea-
Difficulties Overcome.

fered for ship canal!between
Lake Erie and the seaboard
6 have none Of them contem.
plated less than thirty.five locks, and
one of the most feasible would have
required fifty-fve. To be adequate
for the traffic they would bear these
locks would have to be as capacious rs
the new lock at Sault Ste. Marie, the
largest and finest in the world. Tho
latter is 800 feet long, 100 feet wido
and 215 feet deep, and is costing
more than $5,000,000. With locks
like the Sault, the cost for lifts alone
for the contemplated ship canal would
be at least S175, ,000,0 900 on the st.
Lawrence route, and upwards of
$3.50, 900, 900 on what is known as the
Oswego route, that is to say, from Os.
wego to the Hudson. $50 long as nine
teenth century engineering was unable
to advance beyond the lock invented
by Leonardo da Vinci, about the time
that Columbus discovered America,
the problem could not be solved. The
cost would have been too great for
even Government undertaking.
1t has remained for an American en-.
gineer to cut the Gordian knot by the
invention of new lock, exceedingly
simple in design, ensy and cheap of
construction, and quickly and mex
pensiyley operated. In 1890 Chaun-
cey N. Dutton, a young Pittsburg en-.
gineer, took out in the principal
countries i'll the world letters patent
for what he described as pneumatic
balance lock. His design, revolution
Nry as it was, seemed, on the whole, so
simple that engineers stared in won
derment that no one had thought of it
before. Colonel Haskell had already
applied the compressed air principle
to the pneumatic dry dock, now in use
in all countries. Mr.. Dutton pro-
posed simply to make the pneumatic
dry dock into wet dock by building
up the side walls and putting In end
gates between them. Simple as this
device appears, it puts navigation by
hydraulics upon an entirely new basis,
and, in the iudgme mt of the most en-
lnent engineers, must revolutionize
canal construction all over the world.
Merely to indicate the meaning of
this new invention, it will now be pos
sible to construct huge ship-lifts of
equal size, and at least eight times as
high as the greatest lock now in exist
ence. Two locks, each lifting 160 feet.
could replace the twenty five locks
now required along the Welland Canal.
The cost of these new locks, built as
largo as the new lock at the Sault,
would not be more than $3,000,000
each. They would pass a ship from
Ontario to Erie in an hour, where it
now requires day.
1t is from the invention of the pneu-
matte balance lock that Mr.. Dutton
has developed his huge scheme for
maritime canal, which has recently
been before Congress and the Legisla-
ture at Albany. 1t Will extend from
the mouth of the Welland Canal on
Lake Erie, utilize q portion of that
canal, descend, by pair of locks set
tandem, into the Niagara River at
point about opposite Lewiston, utilize
and enlarge tho present Canadian
canal system along the st. Lawrence
River as far as Lake st. Francis, and
there fork in two directions, one arm
will reach by Il new canal to Montreal,
and thence by the St Lawrence River
to the sea, while another will extend
from Lake St. Francis to Lake Cham.
plain, reverse the current of that lake,
and reach from the lower enc OF
Champlain 10 Waterford, on the Hud-
son River. 1t will involve only about
ninety miles of artificial canals, and
afterwards fifteen miles of this will be
cut out by the construction of new
canal from Lewiston, on the Niagara
River, to point above the Falls on
the American side, The project will
require the expenditure OF vast sum
OF money, but Mr.. Dutton has asso-
ciated with him some of the best
known engineers IN the country, to-
gether with a number of heavy capi-
tallsts, and it is proposed to construct
this gigantic system without dol
lar of subsidy from either the
Canadian or United States Govern
ment. The Canadian Parliament in
chartering the North American Canal
Company two years ago, gave it the
right to use the summit levels of the
Canadian canal system along the st.
Lawrence and across the Welland Pen.
insula, to acquire aud enlarge any
present locks, and to construct such
new locks and canals as will be re.
quired to complete the enterprise.
Such National legislation rs is needed
in this country has been introduced
in Congress by Senator Allison, OF
Iowa.
Specifically, Mr. Dutton proposes
to build a canal equipped with locks
of sufficient size so that an ocean
freighter like the Cevic may sail at
river speed from New York to Chicago,
and that without material interrup.