The Sentinel=record., 1914-07-30
CAPE COD CANAL
 IS NOW OPENED
NEW WATERWAY IS EXPECTED TO DIMINISH DANGER OF OCEAN
 TRAVEL ON COAST.
Is Thirteen Miles Long and Includes a Cut Through Sand Boulders to Buzzard's Bay.

Buzzard's Bay, Mass, July 29.-The Boston, Cape Cod and New York canal, connecting Buzzard's Bay with Massachusetts Bay and enabling the coastwise vessels to avoid the dan gerous passage around wreck-strewn l Cane Cod was formally opened today by August Belmont New York, presl- dent of the constructing and operat- ing company. The cana. shortens by 70 miles the shipping distance be tween the ports to the north and the south of it. 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 al | lowed to pass through it. The canal will be open to traffic tomorrow and; will be completed in all its details about the first of Octobar,
 The Cape Cod canal is 13 miles long, including a cut through sand and bouders from Buzzard's Bay to Sandwich, Mass. It has bottom 100 | feet in width, shelving out to 300 and 400 feet at the passing points, and has a draught of 25 feet at low tide. , Greater in it's dimensions than the Suez canal as originally constructed, it can accommodate the largest coast wise vessels afloat, with one or two | exceptions.
 l At the eastern end is a massive breakwater 5000 feet long which con l taias more than 350,000 tons of gran ite. This is designed to protect yes sels using the canal from the storms that sweep across Cape Cod Bay.
 The s12.OO0,000 which has been ex- pended in the constructing of the canal has been spent largely in exca- vating 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-rapped or paved with granite blocks and small boulders. This rip rapping, a large portion of which was done by hand. runs from six feet 1 below to four feet above the high water mark. At the eastern end much money has been spent in the building of a "sand-catcher," a device calculated to keep moving sand from choking up the mouth.
 The canal is in realty river, mak' ing all of Cape Cod an island, for there is considerable difference be tween the tides in Massachusetts Bay and Buzzard's Bay, causing a | sluggish current.
 Tie canal is destined to play an important part in the future com merce along the Atlantic coast of North America. At the present time more than 25,O00,OO0 tons of freight are transported over the Cape Cod route annually. including coal 12,000f 900 tons; stone. 300000 tons; Nova Scotia plaster, 350000 tons; Rockland Rockport lime. 10000 tons; cement 50,000 tons; oil, 2l0 ons; ice 300,00C tons: lumber, 2,000000 tons. and sand, 60,000 tons. Other commodi ties carried in barges and freighters amount to 3,00O,000 tons. while regG
 lar steamship lines of the higher class carry as cargo 100000 tons ol freight around the cape every year
 An absence of fog along the course of the canal will make it particular, desirable to both freight and passen ger carrying vessels. Because of the heavy fogs that prevail off the cape at all times of the year many freight CTS and barges are forced to lay ts until the weather is more favorable for a passage.
 It Is estimated that 500,000 persons a year are carried around Cape Cod In the past sixty years, it is said, twc thousand vessels of various kinds have been wrecked while attemptint the passage and between seven anc eight hundred lives have been lost.
 Tolls for vessels passing througl the canal will average in the neigh borhood of cents per cargo ton pei passage, and for vessels wthou cargo, over 800 tons gross register the rate will be about cents per ton lMotorboats, yachts and other vessels not engaged in commercial trade may pass through the canal for as small a total as $3. The tolls de pend upon gross tonnage and lengtl overall.