4/6 SEVENTH REPORT OP' THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



Board considered preferable, may, without going into the details of estimates of 

 various alternative routes, be taken at $200,000,000. 



While the deep waterways surveys were in progress the State of New York has 

 also moved in the direction of an improvement of Erie Canal. This improvement 

 involves a deepening to a depth of 12 feet, with material change of route. It is 

 technically known as the Barge Canal, because it is proposed to enlarge its capacity 

 enough to carry a barge of i.ooo tons. The boats now navigating Erie Canal carry 

 240 tons. 



' In March, 1899, Governor Roosevelt requested Gen. Francis V. Greene, Major 

 Thomas W. Synions, John N. Scatcherd, George E. Green and Frank S. W'ith- 

 erbce together with the Superintendent of Public Works and the State Engineer 

 and Surveyor, to act as a Committee on Canals. In his letter of appointment 

 (jovernor Roosevelt stated that he desired the opinion of a number of e.xperts who 

 should include in their number not merely high class engineers but men of business, 

 and especially men who had made a study of the problems of transportation, who 

 knew the relative advantages and disadvantages of ship canals, barge canals and 

 ordinary shallow canals, who were acquainted with the history of canal transporta- 

 tion as affected by the competition of railways, and who had the knowledge which 

 will enable us to profit by the experience of other countries in these matters. This 

 Committee examined into the whole subject and under date of January 15, 1900, 

 submitted a report of several hundred pages, recommending that a barge canal 12 

 feet in depth would best answer the present requirements of commerce. The 

 estimated cost of the project, including certain work on Oswego Canal, was about 

 $62,000,000. The writer was consulting engineer to this committee. 



Chapter 411, of the Laws of 1900, authorized a complete survey of the Barge 

 Canal route to be made. This project was reported upon by the State Engineer 

 ana Surveyor under date of February 12, 1901, since which time it has remained 

 in stain quo. The estimated cost by this survey was from $54,000,000 to $80,000,000. 



While all this canal agitation has been going on in the United States our 

 Canadian neighbors have not been idle. The\' have, in the last few years, recon- 

 structed the St. Lawrence River Canals, enlarging and deepening them to 14 feet. 

 But probably their most interesting development is for a ship canal, \ia Ottawa 

 River, Lake Nipissing and Georgian Bay, with a total length of 430 miles. Such a 

 canal would avoid the long detour via St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Lake Erie 

 and Lake Huron. By it, the course is nearly direct from either Sault Ste. Marie or 

 the Straits of Mackinac to Montreal. If constructed it would take the commerce 

 of Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron, amounting to easily 8,000,000 tons per 

 year, to Montreal. Lender date of March 7, 100?, George V. Wisner. Consulting 



