The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1930-07-17
Canal Begun by Washington
Soon May Link Mississippi
With Coast
From The Sunday Sun, Baltimore

the army engineers has been before
the American public for longer time
than our Government has been in ex-
istence. 1t brought the colonies of
Maryland and Virginia into close
neighborliness even before they joined
the other colonies in the great throw
for independence. And with its be-
ginning no less a person than George
Washington was identified in a way
that established him not only as the
foremost soldier and statesman of his
day but also as the universal engineer
of his generation. =.
This project, in Washington's time,
was known as the Powtomack Canal.
In our time it is called decentralization
of the Potomac river. Washington,
our first engineer President, con-
ceived the idea of an all-water route
from Chesapeake Bay to the Mississ-
ippi river via Fort Duquesne, now
Pittsburgh. That part of it known as
the Ohio River Canal has been COM
pleted and was dedicated last October
by our second engineer Presiden,
Herbert Hoover. The remainder of the
project is not yet authorized by Con-
gress.
When and if it is completed it will
be without rival anywhere on the
globe, the nearest approach to it be-
ing the Rhine Main Canal which con-
meets the Rhine river with the Danube,
now nearing completion. One of the
most accomplished of the Army engi-
neers, Major Brehon Somervell, was
sent to Germany four years ago to
spend as much time as was necessary
in study of the Rhine-Main Canal,
and when he was satisfied that he had
a complete picture of all the engineer
ing problems that will have to be met
and overcome he was brought home
and placed in charge of the work on
the Potomac.
For more than two years, under
acts of Congress, Major Somervell
and his engineering corps have been
studying every possible problem con-
nected with canalizing the Potomac
from Georgetown to Pittsburgh, and
they have now about finished those
studies. One route calls for the canal
to run under mountain in a tunnel
that may be longer than the Simplon
tunnel in the Alps. An alternate
route calls for carrying the canal over
the Allegheny Mountains, a lift of
some $500 feet, which will make it
higher lift than that of the Rhine
Main Canal by more than 1000 feet.
This in itself-or the tunnel, for that
matter-will make this canal most
unique and a much-traveled waterway.
Scientifically it will be unparalleled,
and practically it will be without an
equal.
Whichever route the chief of engi-
neers, Major General Lyle, Brown,
recommends to the Secretary of War,
and whichever one the Administrator
accepts and urges upon Congress, the
canalization Of this "fashy stream"
as Major Somervell dubs the Potom-
&C, will contribute immensely to the
economic development of Maryland,
for much of the canal will travel
along the borders of this State or
through it, and many of the great n.y.
droelectric developments It calls for
will be built on Maryland's soil or
very close to it.
AS the plans have now been de-
veloped there will be forty of these
dams, creating forty lakes having a
minimum depth of nine feet and all
capable of generating 100000 kilo-
watt hours per day. Right now there
are before the Federal Power Com
mission three applications from i'm
portant engineering firms in this
country seeking the rights to build
power dams at Little Falls and at
Great Falls just above Washington,
and a controversy has arisen between
the proponents of this power develop
ment and the National Capitol Park
and Planning Commission, of which
Major General Brown is chairman,
over these dams. Major Somervell
has recommended the high dams,
which will generate some 100000
kilowatt hours per day, and the Plan
ming Commission pleads for the
preservation of the physical condition
of the valley between the two falls.
With this controversy this article
will not deal. Each side has it's stout
defenders.
Maryland has more than autilitarian
interest in this grand canal. She was
an equal partner with Virginia in the
first canal company, formed by Wash
ington in ITO, and she gave the later
canal company, formed in 1853,
charter, along with Virginia, and SUBJ
scribed to the capital stock. Her Gov
ernor, Thomas Sims Lee, was elected