St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-03-18

place for less than SIS, 600 actual
cost. This leaves something to spend
on canals. Instead of the narrow and
| . shallow bitches that have been advo-
Gated by people who in their anxiety
to keep down the apparent cost over
looked the insufiiciency of their pro-
JectS the proposition is to make canals
that are big enough. The only exam
PIE at hand ON "a scale valuable for
comparison is the ST. Clair Flats canal
, which is 250 feet wide on the bottom
and ~ feet deep, and has passed 36,-
0O0G tons in one season. The Chi
! cago drainage canal is 202 feet wide on
the bottom, 300 feet at the surface and
70 Feet deep at mean stage of water.
/ Inc most advanced hydraulicians, like
/ Lyman T.. Cooley, do not consider these
! channels big enough for the CONT
! mental trade movement which must so
Through them. They advocate chan
nels 30 feet deep, 300 feet wide on the
J bottom and APO feet at the surface, hav-
. ing 10SOO square feet cross section.
| The Canadian engineers figured on
! channels "A feet deep, 300 feet wide on
/, the bottom, and 400 feet at the sur
lace, giving S,400 square feet cross sec
| ton. Depth under the keel enables a
vessel to steer well. We will have.
| finally, only seventy-five miles (about)
! OF wholly artificial channels between
Lake Erie and New York city, and can
AFFORD to keep enlarging them to sat-
1sfy the growing demands of shipping.
! Depth costs less than width, and is
probably more valuable within. GER
tain limits. The new work now going
on at Chicago and in the lake chan
neis will teach US many things.
J THE BALANCE LOCK.
| NOW, more in detail about the intro
duction of the pneumatic balance lock
Inc mean level of Lake Erie is
oiZ 9-lO feet above tide. To fetch down
| the enormous east-bound tonnage and
! lift back the returning ships and car
! goes requires locks of great size and
! capacity. In short, the lock is the kew
to the problem. AS 1 have said. no
| project heretofore put forth conten-
plated less than thirty-five to fortv
locks between Lake Erie and New
York. And the Maritime Canal of
North. America proposes to do the
work with five. g.a, ,ta.,s =, -,raf-9T
such radical departure from the. &C.
cepted. canons of engineering makes it
worth our while to look into the sub
Ject OF locks, to find out how it has he
come possible to do for $4,000. 600 the
WORK that, according to old precedents.
would cost STE, 100000 to $500, O0O, 900. and
In order to accommodate the traffic
would burden the project with interest
charges on an expenditure so vast as
10 remove the project from the domain
OF commerce and relegate it to the linn
DO OF political and military engineering.
Leonardo da Vinci invented the
canal lock about the time Columbus
discovered America. Since Leonardo's
Tune mis- lock has been used substan-
tally as he built the first one. The
. late Edwin Clark, c. E., of England.
I introduced the hydraulic balance lock
and built one at LIE Louvrien, in Bel
GUM, lifting fifty-six feet. Clark S
lock, however, is not capable of use In
/ ship canals, being suitable for small
boats only.
''The largest and finest lock In the
world is the United States government
lock at st. Mary's falls ('The Soo').
pullt after Leonardo's model. on the
design of Alfred Noble, C. e. This is
olo Feet long, 80 feet wide, II feet
draught, and 1872 feet lift, and cost
/ $2,S63,O COO. 1t can conveniently handle
about 100000 tons during the season
of navigation, and passed 13, All, 1856 tons
last year; but so great is the detention
TO vessels that a large part of the Lake
| Superior trade Stops over by rail to Es-
canada, port on Green bay, Lake
Michigan, which ships more freight
than Baltimore, and receives less than
Alexandria, Va.
commerce of Lake Superior would soon
| outgrow the 500 lock, and in 1886 con-
gress authorized a new lock, 100 feet
wide. SEQ feet long and 20 feet draught
which will cost $5,000,G00 and accom-
modate twice the tonnage of the pres
ent lock. The Canadians also began a
lock in 1888, which is 60 feet wide, SOC
feet long and 20 feet draught It will
cost about $9,00000o making the total
expenditure at st. Mary's falls, since
navigation was first opened, SIS, 600, OO(
for locks and canals.
THE through freight between the
lakes. and seaboard now approximates
6O,O0O,0O0 tons. The least estimated
tonnage of a canal is 10000, 00O the
highest 45,000,0O0. The most conserva.
tive and well-informed engineers
cSAOO Az CoIliiidllllS IL DIT OU,UUV,UUU LUIS
about one-half the through tonnage
and that it will double in six or seven
years.
TONNAGE MORE THAN DOUBLED
1.-THE tonnage of the Sault Ste. Marie
lock more than doubled in the three
years from 1885 to 1888, very nearly
doubled in the six years from
1888 to 1894, and would have
more than doubled could the lock have
handled the tonnage promptly. To &C
commodate SO vast and rapidly ex
banding a volume of commerce would
require lock capacity exceeding thai
of the new lock at St. Mary's Falls
To connect Lake Erie with New Yorl
and Montreal would require thirty five
such locks, costing upward of $780,
600 each. or from s175,000,000 to $780,
0C0, 600 for locks alone; and to handle
the estimated 100000 tons of ship
ping they must be doubled, adding
two-thirds to the cost. Such were the
conditions of the problem of opening
navigation between the lakes and thu
sea until the year 1890, when I in
vented the pneumatic lock, and pat
ented it in all countries.
1.-The peculiar utility Of compressed
air, as applied to lift ships in DIR,
docks and locks, consists in that
gives an elastic support directly be
meath the load, and consequently tn,
II structure is very simple and cheap
it makes the pressure Independent
|, of the height through which the lif
: operates, so that the pressures an6
| strains are no greater in q lift o
100 feet than in one of sixteen feet
) and it flows with twenty-eight time
. the velocity of water, and thus makes
| | it possible to operate high lifts il
about the same time as low lifts.
IL a1Tha nnellmatic lift has been de