PART FIRST.

DATA RELATING TO THE SHIP-CANAL FACILITIES AND TRAFFIC OF THE LAKE SUPERIOR BASIN.

HISTORICAL.

In the last decade of the eighteenth century, a British fur-trading company constructed, on the Canadian side, a sluiceway for the passage of loaded bateaux around the Falls of the St. Mary's River, by a gradual incline to a lift-lock, about 40 x 9 feet in area, built of dressed timber, of which remains have recently been exhumed.. Records are silent as to its further history, but it is believed to have been destroyed during the war of 1812-14, when a military force from the United States burn every building in that vicinity.

In 1852 the Congress of the United States passed a law donating to the State of Michigan 750,000 acres of public land within its borders, to aid in building a ship canal around the Falls, committing the entire control of the work to the State, stipulating, however, that the canal should not be less than 100 feet in width, and 12 feet deep, with locks not less than 250 feet long and 50 feet wide.

Being myself at the Falls when this law was enacted, my own conviction of the importance of the work led me to immediately devote my time and energies to its promotion. In the line of this effort I attended the next session of the State legislature, and was selected by the committee having the matter in charge to draught the State law to govern the prosecution of the enterprise, and it was enacted substantially in the form in which I submitted it. Having made a tour of the lake region during the previous year, its latent resources so impressed me that, upon later attendance at the legislature, I strenuously advocated building the canal upon a still larger scale than the act of Congress called for, as sure to be needed in the coming years. Although the only person, so far as my memory recalls, who originally proposed an increase of the lock dimensions, my views were, after considerable hesitation, adopted by the legislators, and locks 350 feet long and 70 feet wide were (in the law) made obligatory by the State as a condition in any contract for the work. Afterward, submitting a bid in behalf of Eastern capitalists, the contract was awarded to them, and I was at once appointed State's agent by the governor to designate the lands to be received in payment from the United States. In consideration of such selections as made by myself in the Upper Peninsula, and later by a coland agent for the Lower Peninsula, my principals proposed to build the canal for the State, and upon the wise selection of the aforesaid lands their profits depended.

My next step was to apply to the legislature of New York for a special charter for a construction company, which the constitution of the State of Michigan did not permit, but which its legislature could (and did) recognize when created by another State. Having obtained the charter at Albany, New York City was next visited, where cash subscriptions were secured for the authorized capital stock of $1,000,000, and the same apportioned to capitalists, who constituted a remarkably influential and financially able body of stockholders.

Upon the organization of the corporation as the St. Mary's Falls Ship Canal Company I was appointed its general agent, with full executive powers for prosecuting the work, and proceeding to Detroit organized the first detachment of the working force, numbering about 400 men, chartered a steamer, and landed them at the "Soo" (the name under which the Falls, in abbreviation of the French name given it by the Jesuit pioneers of the seventeenth century, were known), June 2, 1853. On the 4th of the same month I formally broke ground, and the work commenced forthwith. My supervisory duties included, unexpectedly to me, that of chief engineer, with the sole responsibility of directing the work, in all respects, during the closed or winter seasons. The most remarkable operation occurring in the engineering department during that period was the devising and constructing of a machine, operated by steam, which could deliver a blow of 10,000 pounds force per square inch, by which submarine rock excavation was carried on in midwinter in 2 fathoms of water, including nearly a half-fathom of ice.

When the emergency requiring such force was discovered, I was obliged to dispatch couriers over the icy wastes of frozen rivers and lakes to the Canadian settlements along the north shore of Georgian Bay to collect numbers of blacksmiths' bellows sufficient to furnish the blast for forging the main parts of this novel machine.

It proved a great success, and by it thousands of yards in area of solid rock were excavated rapidly and economically. While it was operating at the lake entrance I had the honor of personally opening the cofferdam sluice gates, which let the waters of Lake Superior flow permanently into the finished prism and locks of the ship canal the 19th of April, 1855.

The time between the commencement and completion of the work was twenty-two and one-half months, whereas the contract period allowed was twenty-four months. The capital allotted for the work was $1,000,000; but my account as construction agent was, in rouud numbers, less than $875,000. Thus this canal was, both as to time and cost, completed within the original estimates.

Probably no public work was ever constructed upon more honorable principles. In every case where, as engineer, I applied to the directors for permission to improve the work beyond the contract specifications, it was granted. The State engineer's plans were originally for lock-gates, worked with long beams, against which men were to brace their backs in opening or shutting. Before that detail was reached more excellent but costlier devices were substituted at the contractors' expense.

This canal had by far the largest locks then to be found in the world, and they have fulfilled their mission without defect or cessation for over a third of a century. Upon an examination made this week I could not find a single fissure in the lock walls or detect any deflection in them, nor in the miter sills or lock-chamber floors. That they would continue thus for ages, so far as the forces of nature are concerned, is unquestionable. The engineers of the United States Government have, however, now commenced operations to remove them, and to substitute a new lock of nearly quadruple capacity, as will be hereinafter noted.

In referring to them, General Poe, U. S. Army, in charge of the work, in his report of of December 29, 1886, uses the following language:

"They were magnificent constructions in their day, and would still be useful if the commerce had not entirely outgrown them."

It may be of interest to you to be assured that if the construction of the canal, of which you have charge, was under its present conditions the subject of choice for personal management, as against the canal at this point, with the surroundings under which its construction was undertaken, I should recommend yours as involving the least risk and administrative energy, to secure its completion within your engineering estimates as to both time and cost.

To meet any incredulity as to such conclusions, in view of the far greater operations required at Nicaragua, some of the obstacles overcome will, by way of contrast, be recalled.

This region was then more remote from the sources of labor supply and many prime materials than is yours at this time.

Thus in 1853 every one of the many thousand kegs of powder used was transported here from the States of Connecticut or Delaware on the Atlantic coast. Agents were required, en route to and from New York City, to hire immigrants and bring them here in gangs, paying all their expenses, and also to circumvent the emissaries of the various railroads then building in Illinois and Wisconsin, who came here surreptitiously to hire them to go elsewhere, as there was at that time a scarcity of labor throughout the West. The nearest machine shop was several hundred miles away, with no practical means of communication during five-twelfths of the year. The nearest telegraph station was at Detroit, 450 miles distant, and business letters in midwinter required six weeks to reach the Construction Company's New York office and return a reply.

On the other hand, all parts of your work will be in telegraphic communication with each other and with your New York office, while labor and supplies can be sent from the best markets directly and cheaply to your own landings and depots.

The conditions as to improvements in labor-saving machinery and explosives made available within the intervening years are almost incomparably in your favor.

In this case drilling was done mainly by hand-100 men then not equalling the work of ten men with present improved machinery. Then the only way to hasten the work was to increase the number of hands, and consequently at one time 2,000 men could here be seen at work within the space of 1 mile. The climate and sanitary conditions of your line of work must be considered as exceptionably favorable, in view of the equable mildness of the climate and for other reasons hereinafter stated under the caption of "climatic conditions," etc.

At this locality, during the severity of winter, 35 degrees below zero is frequently registered in the mornings of the short days, with only eight hours of sunlight

S. Doc. 231, pt 4—15

During the hours of such extremely low temperature one man was detailed to stand at the head of each of the run ways for barrows, with orders when he saw a face frostbitten to rub it with snow until circulation was restored without the barrow-man leaving the work. Epidemic cholera broke out during the second summer and carried to their graves about one-tenth of the working force.

When these facts are borne in mind it will be seen that a choice of your undertaking as the least difficult will not seem unreasonable. Experts have declared that the record of building a work of the dimensions and importance of the Lake Superior Ship Canal in the face of the obstacles indicated, and yet within the estimates as to both time and cost, has never been surpassed. Be that as it may, it is a pleasant conclusion of this historical notice to be able to say that, viewed as a financial venture, the canal proved a great success for its contractors, as the following instance will illustrate An English capitalist, residing or having business connections in the Madeira Islands at that time, visited the works with introductory letters to myself, and, after personal observation, instructed his agent in New York to invest $100,000 in the Construction Company's stock. About twenty years later that agent's cashier informed me that he had remitted over $500,000 in sterling exchange as the proceeds of the sale of a part of that investor's quota of the selected lands, with a balance yet to follow.

The locks and canal as originally constructed continued uninterruptedly in use until the close of the season of 1886. Meanwhile the commerce of Lake Superior, in consequence of these canal facilities, increased so rapidly that the demand for enlargements was imperative-not alone from the State of Michigan, which controlled it, but also from such of the other States and the provinces of Canada as bordered upon its connecting lakes. Consequently the State of Michigan, on the 3d of March, 1881, passed an act transferring the canal to the United States Government, which by an act of Congress of the same year accepted it as a national canalthe most important public work within its broad domain. On the 1st of September of the aforesaid year the supplementary lock (for which Congress had made due appropriation) was added to the canal facilities.

Thus far in historical review.

It was my good fortune to meet here during the present month, General Casey, Chief of United States Engineers, having charge of all the national public works, also General Poe, U. S. Army, in charge of Government works in this district, together with Mr. E. S. Wheeler, civil engineer, United States, general superintendent of the canal.

By the courtesy of these distinguished officials, the opportunity was provided for an inspection by me of the governmental work of deepening the river about 20 miles below the canal, at a point known as the Middle Neebish Channel.

CHANNEL IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ST. MARY'S RIVER.

General Superintendent Wheeler accompanied me on the United States steamer Despatch on the 12th instant and afforded me all possible information concerning the Neebish Channel rock-excavating operations. A channel is there being cut through solid sandstone rock, from 10 to 15 feet thick, 300 feet in width, for a distance of over

2 miles.

Dredges were made capable of forcing their way through the less solid upper strata of the rock, but the use of explosives in all the strata was found to be cheaper. The chief interest centered upon a machine drill boat, having four steam drills working from one of its sides, boring 24-inch-diameter holes about 6 feet apart, and 12 to 15 feet deep, into which 30-inch-long dynamite canisters were placed and exploded by electricity, without delaying the other drills at work alongside.

The perfection to which work of that kind has been brought is shown by the fact that the constructors now receive but $1.80 per cubic yard for the rock excavation, measured in place, although required to deposit the débris in a way to construct a sea wall or mole some 6 feet above water, 50 feet from and parallel to the ship channel, as a safeguard against transverse currents acting upon passing vessels. Superintendent Wheeler informed me that the same work, if let ten or twelve years ago, would have cost at least $4 per yard.

These and similar items of information have a direct bearing upon the plans and operations of your company, in prosecuting the deepening of the ship channel at its entrance into Lake Nicaragua and at various points along the San Juan River.

LOCK ENLARGEMENTS AND IMPROVEMENTS.

At the time of the completion of the original canal at this locality no vessels drawing over 8 feet of water could reach it from Lake Huron, owing to reefs and sand bars in the connecting river channels. Then the depth of 12 feet in the locks seemed ample. Not long after this was assured, the National Government entered upon the work of deepening and straightening the lake water courses to a minimum of 12 feet.

A decade later, the channel depth was generally increased to 16 feet, and the same is now being still further deepened to a minimum of 20 feet, under the supervision of Army officers detailed to that duty at the various points of operation.

Coincident with the attainment of the general canal depth of 16 feet, it became necessary to provide similar depth in the canal and locks, and accordingly a supplementary lock was built by the side of the original ones, the lift being made in a single chamber, as shown in the annexed photographic view recently obtained.

This is now the operating lock of the canal, being 515 feet long, 80 feet wide, decreased to 60 feet in width at the gates.

It has a depth of 17 feet over the miter sills, and a lift of 18 feet. The depth of the chamber is 394 feet. At each end of the lock are placed outside guard gates of the same style as those in regular use, all being of the usual horizontal motion planThe inflow and discharge of the locks is provided for by two parallel conduits passing under the miter sills and lock floors; those for the inflow being 8 feet square, and having openings 2 feet square, occurring at regular intervals, under the whole length of the lock. This proves to be a perfect plan for the purpose, and is being copied, substantially, by the Canadian engineers.

The gates are operated by hydraulic power, in a simple but effective method, by which, in two minutes of time, the leaves are brought into reversed positions. Eleven minutes suffices for filling the lock, and eight minutes for its discharge. The lock and the canal are equipped with electric lights, and vessels are passing at all hours; the estimated capacity being 4 per hour, or 96 per diem. The greatest daily number passed to date was on June 14, 1887, when 87 were locked through. I recently witnessed a pleasing instance of international courtesy, when two Canadian Pacific Line steamers, of 2,000 tons each, were locked together through this United States canal, without toll or charge of any kind.

At the upper end of the canal is a novel arrangement of a guard gate, to be used in case of any serious displacement or damage to the operating lock gates; an accident which might convert the canal into the channel of a torrent, in which ordinary swing gates would not withstand the process of being closed.

This device may properly bo termed a movable dam, and resembles, in appearance, an ordinary railway swing bridge, with the addition of a lower section moving in the canal prism. Its advantages are that it can be operated entirely on land, and, having slot openings, would not stop the current suddenly (being only partially shut, until each slot is separately closed), and thus this appliance would not invite the whole force of the current to crush the jambs or the gates.

The following wood cut will serve to indicate its form:

The possibility of this guard gate being called into requisition is not remote, for a heavily loaded steamship might easily surge against lock gates with force sufficient to carry them away singly, or through a series of lifts.*

The principle of the movable dam offers a reliable safeguard against such contingencies, and I can not too strongly recommend the adoption of the principle in its most improved form on the Atlantic and Pacific slopes of your water way, as of the highest importance. The credit of the above-mentioned device, I am informed, belongs mainly to Mr. Alfred Noble, formerly the assistant constructing engineer on this canal.

One feature of the new lock invites criticism. It is the drawing in of the chamber width at the gates, which is an unnecessary impairment of the capacity of the lock, as it prevents two vessels entering freely abreast. This feature is reported as being copied on the Canadian side, but in the latest and largest projected United States lock it is sensibly discarded altogether.

As before mentioned, the United States Government having engaged in the process of making all the lake-connecting channels of a minimum depth of 20 feet, new lock facilities commensurate with the increased draught became a necessary sequence. To provide these it was decided to remove the original locks already mentioned, and replace them by an enlarged lock with these unprecedented dimensions: 800 feet long, 100 feet wide in chamber and at gates, and having 18 feet lift, with 21 feet in depth over miter sills.

The gates are to be in two leaves of iron material, each of about 55 by 45 feet in area, and, as General Poe informs me, are estimated to weigh 124 tons for each leaf. Upon an intimation that I thought a plan involving less weight might be devised, he requested me to submit the same to him when I should have it fully prepared; this I intend to do in time for your company to have the benefit of his judgment as well as that of the Canadian canal engineers, who also desire to adopt improvements in this regard.

The Canadian Government having determined to build, at this point, a canal within its own territory, work has already commenced [under contracts to be completed in 1892], upon a canal 150 feet wide at bottom, with locks 600 feet long, 85 feet wide, and narrowed to 65 feet at gates, with 18 feet over miter sills.

Assuming that both the United States and Canadian canal enlargements now in progress, will be in service at the commencement of 1895, the following growth of canal transit capacity in the first forty years of ship canal operations on this inland water course, will have been developed:

1855.-Lockage. 350 by 70 by 16 (counting as one full lift) 1895.-Lockage. 515 by 80 by 16.

Lockage. 600 by 85 by 18
Lockage. 800 by 100 by 20

Cubic feet. Cubic feet.

392,000

659, 200 943, 500 1,600,000

3,202, 700

Increase, more than 8 for 1.

TRAFFIC DEVELOPMENT.

Surprising as the foregoing figures may be deemed, it will be seen that the traffic growth has a far larger ratio of increase. Thus:

The returns of the first three months of 1889 indicate that the freight tonnage will reach at least 7,500,000 tons, for the season. (Traffic to August 1, 3,426,051 tons.) The tonnage increase of the canal traffic (with a most liberal starting figure of registered, instead of traffic tonnage), is, therefore, in thirty-four years, over 60 to 1.

*Since these lines were written, I have been informed by Chief Engineer Page, who has charge of all the Canadian canals, that such an occurrence has taken place more than once in his experience with the Welland Canal (extending between Lakes Erie and Ontario). A steamer, its engines "caught on center" when the engineer attempted to reverse their motion, caused a pair of gates to be disabled during the present season; and in a previous year an entire series of connecting lift gates were carried away from the same cause.