434 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



he does not wish to be understood as saying that a lock canal is not 

 practicable. 



At the same meeting, Mr. Hunter, of the Manchester Canal, gave 

 expression to his views on the type of canal, explaining that although 

 as a member of the Comite Technique he favored, under the circum- 

 stances then prevailing a lock canal, he could not under the altered 

 conditions "undertake the responsibility of joining in a recommenda- 

 tion to the United States for the construction of a lock canal. . . ." 



Advocating the adoption of a lock-canal project, on the other hand, 

 Mr. Noble said : 



I believe the lock canal affords quicker construction, that the wider and 

 deeper waterways it provides would give better navigation; that the transit 

 of ships would be quicker and that the lock canal would have even a greater 

 capacity for traffic than the narrow waterway proposed by the sea-level canal 

 committee. 



Another advocate of the lock type of canal, Mr. Eipley, concurred 

 in the remarks of Mr. Noble and gave as an additional reason for 

 his position the belief that this type of canal would provide for a navi- 

 gation the limit of which will not be reached in a number of years 

 probably 40 to 75 years, so that the people of the United States will 

 not soon be called upon to make additional expenditures for improving 

 the canal; whereas for a sea-level canal it is quite probable that within 

 a short time, possibly 15 or 25 years, a widening will be necessary which 

 will cost many millions of dollars. 



Mr. Parsons, also of the board of engineers, referred to the fact 

 that a canal was to be built for all time, that it was a work of the 

 greatest constructive magnitude ever undertaken. The plan of the 

 canal should be of the broadest and largest possible type which we can 

 conceive. A few years more or less in time is of no consequence. 

 Neither is an additional cost of $50,000,000 or even $100,000,000 of 

 importance, as there will be an adequate return. Accidents similar to 

 those which have occurred on the Manchester and the " Soo " Canals 

 have occurred also in the Welland and other canals. These accidents 

 by great good fortunes have not been disasters. With locks of large size 



of the size now contemplated the results would have been more serious. It 

 is not the danger to the ship itself that I have in mind, . . . but the danger 

 to the canal. If at one of these big locks an accident should happen, such as 

 has happened at other locks and as will happen here, and a ship should go 

 plunging through and carry away the safety gates and every other mechanical 

 device for protection, releasing the lake of water that lies behind those locks, 

 the section of the canal between that lock and the ocean terminas would be so 

 destroyed that it would take anywhere from one to five years to put it back in 

 service again. The terminal port itself would be gone, the canal would be out 

 of use, the world's traffic would be deranged and the difference in cost of the 

 two types would be wiped out in a few seconds of time. That risk a great 

 government can not be justified in taking. 



With these views before him, and in the light of all the information 



