The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1901-03-17
Vessels From New York to
st. Louis by Way of Great Lakes.

| The deepening of the Chicago Drainage
Canal to the Mississippi River. and the
deepening of the Mississippi itself to the
Gulf of Mexico. is the logical sequence Of
the first project. The Nicaragua Canal
would then form one part of a great line
OF navigation. by which the products Of
| the interior Of the continent could reach
either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.
The cost would be small. compared with
| the resulting benefits. and some day this
navigation will be built by the Government
| of the United States.
The deepening of the Southwest Pass Of
the Mississippi River from six to thirty
feet by James 3. Eads was a great engi-
neering achievement. 1t was the first app!i-
cation Of the jetty system on a large scale.
This is merely combining the flow of a river
and thus increasing its velocity, so that it
| secures a deeper channel for itself.
| The Improvement of harbors follows close
~ the increased size Of ocean and lake ves-
sells. The approach to New York harbor
is now being deepened to forty feet. a thing
impossible to be done without the largest
| application Of steam machinery in a sue
| ton dredge boat.
| The great increase of urban population,
due to steam and electric railways. has
| made works Of water supply and drainage
necessary everywhere. Some of these are
on a very grand scale. An illustration OF
this is the Croton Aqueduct of New York
1 as III III IL DIu do ~ ~ IL
This work was thought by it's designers to
be on a scale large enough to last for all
time. 1t is now less than sixty years old,
and the population of New York will soon
be too large to be supplied by it.
1t is able to supply $50. 900. 900 to 800. 000, 900
gallons daily. and its cost. when the Cornell
dam and jerome Park reservoir are fin
| ished, will be a little over $s2, OOO.O 900.
1t Is now suggested to store water in the
Adirondack Mountains. 2O3 miles away, by
dams built at the outlet of ten or twelve
lakes. This will eoualize the flow of the
| Hudson River so as to give 5000. 900. 900 to A.
900, 600, 900 gallons daily. 1t is then proposed
to pump LOCO. 100000 gallons daily from the
Hudson River at ~Poughkeepsie, sixty miles
away. to a height sufficient to supply the
city by gravitation through an aqueduct.
This water would be filtered at Poughkeep-
sic, and we now know that all impurities
can be removed.
II this scheme Is carried out, the total
supply will be about 1900. 900. 700 gallons
daily, or enough for a population of from
IL, 900, 600 to IL, 600, 900 persons. BY putting in
more pumps, filter beds and conduits. this
supply can be increased 40 per cent, or to
1900. 600, 600 gallons daily. This water would
fill every day a lake one mile square by ten
feet deep. This is a fair example of the scale
of the engineering works of the Nineteenth
and Twentieth centuries.
BY the application of modern labor-savinK
machinery, the cost of this work can be so
far controlled that the cost to the city of
New York per LOCO. COO gallons would be no
greater than that of the present Croton
supply.
All works of hydraulic engineers depend
on water. But what will happen II the
water all dries up? India. China, Spain,
Turkey and Syria have suffered from
d~roughts, caused clearly by the destruction
of their forests, Tue demand for paper to
print books and newspaper upon, and for
other purposes, Is fast converting our for
ests into pulp. We canno even say. After
US the deluge." for it will seldom rain in
those evil days. When the rains do come,
tho sponge-liko vegetation Of the forests
being gone, tho streams will be torrents at
one time Of the year and dried up during