Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-07-30
Canal Statistics

Although the canal has actually been
open from one end to the other since
early this month, no vessels other
than those belonging to the owners of
the canal have been allowed to pass
through it. The canal will he omen
to traffic tomorrow and will be com
pleted in all it's details about the first
of October
The Cape Cod Canal is thirteen
miles long, including a cut through
sand and boulders from Buzzards Ray
to Sandwich Mass. 1t has a bottom
100 feet in width, shelving out to 800
and 400 feet 1t the passing points, and
has draught of % feet at low tide.
Greater in its dimensions than the
Suez Canal, as originally constructed
it can accommodate the largest coast
wise vessels afioat, with one or two
exceptions.
At the eastern end is massive
breakwater 5000 feet long which con-
tains more than $50. 900 tons of granite
This is designed to protect vessels us
ing the canal from the storms that
sweep across Cape Cod Bay.
The $12,000,000 which has been ex-
pended in the constructing of the canal
has been spent largely in excavating
some 100000 cubic feet of sand and
boulders. In order to keep the wash
from passing vessels from wearing
away the banks they have been rip
raped, or paved with granite blocks
and small boulders. This rip rapping,
a large portion of which was done by
hand, runs from six feet below to four
feet above the high water mark At
the eastern end much money has been
spent in the building of sand
catcher a device calculated to keep
moving sand from choking up the
mouth.
The canal is in reality a river, MAX
ing all of Cape Cod an island, for
there is considerable dierenee between
the tides in Massachusetts Bay and
Buzzards Bay, causing a sluggish cur
rent.
The canal is destined to play an i'm
portant part in the future commerce
along the Atlantic coast of North
America. At the present time more
than 100000 tons ~of freight are
transported over the Cape Cod route
annually, including coal 10000 600
tons; stone, 100000 tons; Nova Scotia
plaster, $4,000 tons; Rockland Rock
port lime, 10000 tons: cement. 10000
tons: oil 210 tons; ice. 800 900 tons;
lumber, 1000, 600 tons and sand, co.
600 tons. Other commodities carried
in barges and freighters amount to
5000, 600 tons, while regular steamship
lines of the higher class carry as cargo
100000 tons of freight around the
cape every year.
An absence of fog along the course
of the canal will make it particularly
desirable to both freight and passenger
carrying vessels Because of the
heavy fogs that prevail off the cape at
all times of the year many freighters
and barges are forced to lay to until
the weather is more favorable for a
passage.
1t is estimated that 500. 900 persons
a year are carried around Cape Cod.
In the past sixty years, it is said, two
thousand vessels of various kinds have
been wrecked while attempting the
passage and between seven and eight
hundred lives have been lost.
Tolls for vessels passing through
the canal will average in the neighbor-
hood of seven cents per cargo ton per
passage and for vessels without cargo
over 500 tons gross register. the rate
will be about five cents per ton.
Motorboats yachts and other vessels
not enga ged in commercial trade may
pass through the canal for as small
toll as So. The tolls depend upon
gross tonnage and length overall.