The Republican journal., 1922-03-23
sTHE ST. LAWRENCE CANAL
PROJECT

The st. Lawrence 10 great river. The
volume of water which it pours into the
Atlantic is enormous and SO great is its
watershed that its low water periods are
rare. Seldom is the difference of its av-
serage flow and its low water flow more
ahan 5 per cent. To 60 up the river by the
usual route, ships pass from the Atlantic,
Ahrouah the Straits of Belle Isle into the
C ulf of St. Lawrence and cross the Gulf.
. distance of about 400 miles. to the
rmou tn of the river. IL is 400 miles from
the mouth of the river to Quebec, and
any of our transatlantic steamers, except
the very largest, can steam to that city
safely and without hindrance, and dock
sat its wharves.
Montreal is about 100 miles up the riv-
er from Quebec About midway between
these two cities is Lake St. Peter. The
river flows into one end of this lake and
nut at the other. There are extensive
shoals in this lake, where the average
depth of water was only about II feet.
These shoals have been dredged at the
expense of Canada, making a channel
some 400 feet wide and having a depth
of about 80 feet. This has enabled Mon
treal to become a seaport which, except
for distance, is nearly, if not fully equal
to Quebec,in accessibility. Immediately
above Montreal are the Lachine rapids,
where there is q fall of about As feet in
six or seven miles. A canal about nine
miles long and having five locks, has
been constructed to surmount these rap
ids. In going down the river quite large
passenger steamers run down these rap
ids, but use the canal on the return trip.
Within a distance of about 100 miles
above Montreal there are, at intervals.
five other rapids or cascades, each of
which is surmounted by the use of ca
nal. These canals have a total length oi
"A miles, a total of q locks and when q
boat on its up river trip emerges from the
last lock it is on a level with the watel
of Lake Ontario and more than 22O feet
above the water level at Montreal. From
tn at point q ship drawing 25 feet of wa
ter can sail out to and across Lake On
tario, distance of more than 200 miles
when the captain will hear the roar oi
Nj agara as it tum bles 5000 cubic feet
ecf water every sec one of time over the
falls, on its way from Lake Erie into
Lake Ontario. The water level of Erie
is $50 feet above that OF Ontario and YES
sails are lifted from the latter to the for
mersthrough the Welland canal, which is
loo ated some eight or ten miles west OF
Ma CARA river, is little more than q
miles long and has q locks. From the
upper end of this canal there is deep wa
ter to Detroit, Michigan, more than $50
miles and from Detroit to Chicago, dis
tance of $50 miles further. The foregoing 6
II miles of canals and their 81 locks will
not pass vessels of more than 2. 600 to q,
500 tonnage.
There ere more than 200 ocean going
steamers having tonnage of more than
40, 900, q having tonnage of more than
70 .Oo0, 8 having more than $4,000, hav
in more than 40. 600 and having a ton
naee of more than $4,000 The shortest
ship in the above list is 500 feet long,
none of them have breadth of less than
s. feet and the largest two have q
hresdth of 100 feet each, one of these be-
ing 956 feet long and the other o50
For several years the people of Chica-
20 and Detroit have visioned the time
when they, like Quebec and Montreal,
would become seaports to which Cunar-
ders would bring the merchandise and
products of the world and steam away
laden with the vast products of the Mid
de West making Chicago city of 10,
90. 900 inhabitants. and the greatest
commercial and financial center on the
siobe. Detroit expects to be close sec
end to Chicago. These visions and hopes
are now expressing themselves in a de-
nsnd that BY joint action and expendi-
ture, the United States and the Domin.
ion of Canada shall reconstruct and en-
aerGe all these canals to capacity prac