THE HISTORY AND ECONOMIC VAEUE OF CANAI^S, WITH 

 SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE CAPE COD CANAL. 



By Commodore J. W. Miller, Vice-President. 



[Being a paper read at the eighteenth general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine 

 Engineers, held in New York, November 17, 1910.] 



The title of our Society in its broadest significance includes all marine 

 possibilities. Our organization and our personnel can only prosper as the 

 scope of naval projects is enlarged. The architect must be the builder 

 of ideas, the engineer the constructor of new thought before the resultants 

 therefrom become physical facts. 



Kindred associations, the Government and other societies are alive 

 to the importance of the question of deeper waterways ; therefore so much 

 the more should we. This country is expending some seven hundred 

 millions of dollars upon canals, while millions more are advocated for the 

 betterment of our rivers, harbors and streams. Many of the plans pro- 

 posed are excellent, others of doubtful advantage. It should be the 

 province of this scientific society to encourage the former. 



Eliminating from the discussion any narrow local, financial or com- 

 mercial view of the subject, I will confine myself, in the first instance, to 

 the influence of canals upon nations and communities, and then note how 

 that influence has led this country to its present widespread thought upon 

 the improvement of our waterways, and especially one of them which will 

 be proved of immediate national benefit. From a casual study of the 

 history of canals two facts present themselves: — 



1. That a congested and interior population naturall}^ seeks the sea 

 for wider markets. 



2. That wherever practicable traffic will ultimately reach the sea by 

 water which has been, and again will be, the cheapest of all routes. 



The truth of these axioms is to be seen from remotest time. 



I. 



As early as 5000 B. C. an overcrowded Assyria and Babylon were 

 seeking, through waterways, the ports of Asia Minor as outlets for surplus 

 product and population. 



