Times-promoter. (Hernando, DeSoto County, Miss.) 1898-1970, 1908-08-14
DESCRIPTION OF CANAL
Major Dockery Tells Of Great Canadian
Waterway.

Port Colborne, Canada, Aug, 8, 1908.
The Welland Canal was built by
the British government to get around
Niagra Falls and enable her ships to
pass from the st. Lawrence through
| the lakes to Duluth-the western-most
point of the chain of great lakes,
about 1900 miles from this point.
The canal was stupendous under
taking when it was built, having to
go through solid rock several miles on
its way.
You must remember Lake Ontario
is good deal lower than Lake Erie.
You can put the figures to it. 1t is
twenty eight miles long and there
are twenty-four locks and dams each
dropping the ship fourteen feet when
going down or raising it when going
up or west. saw several ships
loaded with wheat in Chicago go
through on their way to Liverpool.
The original canal was found to be
too small and was abandoned and a
larger one built. This draws fourteen
feet. Now they find this too small
and are surveying for one that will
draw twenty-four feet of water, with
the intention (if they cam of getting
all of the carrying trade of our lake
region for their vessels, but New York
I am told will fight for the carrying
and will appropriate one hundred
millions to enlarge her Erie canal
(that immortalized Dewitt Clinton)
that runs from Lake Erie at Buffalo
to the Hudson river and out at the
port of New York. The rivalry is in
teresting. am not an expert at de-
scribing things and can't explain the
working of the locks and dams very
satisfactory, but they are something
like stair steps. You close the gate
below and, raise the one above, the
water flows to level between the
two, and the vessel if going up goes
above the upper gate that was opened
and that gate is closed aygain ard the
next raised and SO on to the top.
The gates are massive timbers and
come together in the middle in the
shape of V, and are worked by elec-
tricity from Niagra Falls.
1t requires a whole day to get a
vessel through, but twenty-four can
be in the canal at one time, each in a
separate ehambeR The Canal is free
to our vessels as to the English.
I went on street car from the
canal to the falls about twenty miles
and styed there two days and was in
terested constantly with some new
scene or thing. The towns on each
side the river are about the same size
and have about twenty-five thousand
people. No pen, brush or tongue can
convey a correct picture of the beau
ties and grandeur of the rapids above
and of the falls, and the foam of the
beautiful green water and the mists
flying high above the falls and the
bright rainbows in the spray and |
will not attempt any description, but
will say it is here, come and see it.
saw four great steel brides. One
two story; two of them railroad
bridges, single steel arches spanning
the gorge from bank to bank. The
American town is the cleanest ever
saw. The streets are well paved with
asphalt, and the sidewalks are con-
crete. 1T is a place of comfortable
homes, splendid hotels and rooming
and boarding houses. No commerce
that requires drays and heavy wagons
to break their pavements and litter
the streets. saw some large cloth
ing stores, great many fine restau-
rants, but the most of the stores
seemed to be curios, souvenirs and
postal picture cards of which | am
told there is a two-horse wagon load
sent off every day. Electricity gen
Grated at the falls runs all the machi-
merry within d hundred miles, and
some good deal farther.
saw but one manufacturing estab-
lishment but that was huge one.
1t is only shredded wheat factory on
the continent and after seeing the
working Of it, / shall eat the output
with more confidence in its cleanli-
ness than I did before. The manager
told me they used two thousand bush
els of wheat every day. Two hum
dred and fifty girls and two hundred
! men with seven millions worth of