THE CAPE COD CANAL 



By Commodore J. W. Miller 



A NY ONE who looks at the map of 



/\ New England must notice the 

 J_ j^ semi-detached air of Cape Cod. 

 Students of geology know that it was 

 formed during the Glacial period, when 

 boulders and clay from the shores of 

 I.,abrador and Maine created it, as a 

 breakwater over which the sand of the 

 sea was later deposited. Another ice- 

 drift coming down the valleys of Con- 

 necticut scoured out the pools since 

 known as Long Island Sound and Buz- 

 zards Bay. Between the latter and Barn- 

 stable Bay lies an isthmus of moraine de- 

 posit only 8 miles in width, with a sur- 

 face elevation 29 feet above tide-water. 

 Through this narrow strip a ship canal 

 has just been dug. 



Thoreau calls Cape Cod the "bare 

 bended arm of Massachusetts." As such 

 it safely guards the large sheet of water 

 lying within its protection, but is a men- 

 ace to vessels navigating its eastern lee 

 shore or sailing through the fog-bound 

 region of Vineyard Sound. There lie 

 dangerous shoals and banks swept by 

 storms and uncertain currents, pitfalls 

 where many a ship has gone down. 



For these reasons and from the earliest 

 times the idea of cutting a channel 

 through the low Bourndale Valley, at the 

 shoulder of the cape, has recommended 

 itself as an obvious shortening and deep- 

 ening of the way, through safe and 

 smooth water, between Boston and 

 Southern points. 



The Pilgrim fathers had noted the 

 benefit of canals during their sojourn in 

 the low countries ; had seen their sons 

 lost while fishing ofif the cape, and, with 

 their love of hard work and natural in- 

 clination toward the water, attempted to 

 make an interior passage. 



As early as 1623 Miles Standish was 

 skirting the shores, and on September 2, 

 1627, his boats sailed up the Scusset 

 River and met the sloops of the merchant 

 De Ressiers which, at the starvation call 

 of the colony. New Amsterdam had sent 

 through Buzzards Bay to the rescue of 

 the Englishmen. There, on the Mano- 



met River, began the first water trade 

 that, increasing for three centuries, will 

 be greatly enlarged now that the canal is 

 finished. 



The effort to connect at this point 

 what the earliest settlers called "the 

 North and South seas" has never been 

 abandoned. Old charts of the 17th and 

 1 8th centuries show possible routes. The 

 High Court of the Colony ordered ex- 

 aminations and surveys. George Wash- 

 ington, when in Boston in 1776, hoped 

 to be able to send his troops to New York 

 through the route; finding it impossible, 

 he said "the mterior barrier should be 

 cut in order to give greater security to 

 navigation and against the enemy." 



From the close of the Revolution until 

 1820 high officials of the United States 

 and of Massachusetts advocated the canal 

 as useful in time of war as well as in 

 peace, General Knox, Secretary Galla- 

 tin. Winthrop, and Thorndike being 

 prominent in the movement. 



The era of canal building in this coun- 

 try and further local agitation followed. 

 If Massachusetts had then had the fore- 

 sight of Virginia and New York, she 

 might have wrested the marine supre- 

 macy from the Hudson at a cost trivial 

 compared to the money spent upon the 

 Erie and Chesapeake canals. 



All through the last century company 

 after company was formed and govern- 

 mental acts passed looking toward the 

 removal of the narrow strip of land 

 blocking smooth-water transit between 

 Long Island Sound and the waters of 

 eastern Massachusetts. 



The reasons for failure are not hard to 

 discover. Railroad building was at its 

 height and investment found quick re- 

 turns in the West. The pace of the slow 

 sailing vessel met the time requirements 

 as a carrier of crude material from 

 Southern mines and forests. Engineer- 

 ing hydraulic methods were crude and 

 expensive compared to their perfection 

 during the past few years. These rea- 

 sons no longer exist. 



The Spanish-American War opened 



185 



