280 REVIEWS. 



alone -would in one year exceed $80,000, and in another be a trifle above $15,000. 

 The inference is, therefore, quite legitimate, that there has been no well consider- 

 ed separation of what should be placed to permanent works and what to repairs, 

 and it is hardly possible to apportion the amount fairly chargeable to capital. One 

 has, therefore, to take an arbitrary mode of arriving at results. "We have, how- 

 ever, the authority of the Report of 1863, for stating that about $1,400,000 is 

 chargeable to increasing the depth of water to ten feet on the mitre sills of the 

 locks, and to widening and bottoming the summit level to admit the waters of 

 Lake Erie as a feeder. As this amount has been expended since the Union, and 

 $2,526,884.19 was paid before the Union, we know positively that $3,926,784.19 

 has been expended totally independent of the main work for the enlargement of 

 the Canal and locks. The Canal may be looked upon as having been opened at 

 the present capacity in 1846, and may be considered to have been in operation 

 18 years. Unfortunately, in the fignres compiled, the greatest expenditures are 

 precisely those, where no distribution has been made. The magnitude of the am- 

 ounts itself suggests the idea, at the same time, that much has been included as 

 repairs which really was a part of the cost of the construction. It becomes, to 

 some extent, a matter of opinion what these statements really represent. If, how- 

 ever, for these 18 years $50,000 be allowed far management and $300,000 for re- 

 pairs and renewals, which would be nearly at the rate of $18,000 a year, the ap- 

 proximation arrived at, may claim to be at Jeast theoretically just. The vouchers 

 are still in existence, and those interested in the result can easily disinter them to 

 prove what the repairs really were. Making this reduction of $18,000 from $Y,- 

 293,244.89 will place the cost at $6,493,244.89, or, in round figures, six and a half 

 millions of dollars. 



" The history of this Canal has been very fully given, for unmistakeably it affords 

 its moral ; and if there be teaching which in the conduct of public works should 

 lead to the avoidance of error, it is here. We find a small clique of irresponsible 

 men, with no special aptitude, taking possession and to no little extent enjoying 

 all the fruits, of the management of a project, which was national in its character. 

 Their earliest and great idea was definitely to establish the line, and we fear we 

 must conclude that this choice was purely a matter of self-interest. There were 

 ■no difficulties to bewilder the judgment. Once establish the necessity of connect- 

 ing the two great Lakes, which everyone recognized, and there was never a plainer 

 or easier question to decide. It was to have made Lake Erie the feeder, to have 

 selected the easiest descent from the upper to the lower level, and to have con- 

 tinued the most direct and best connections with the two Lakes. The Grand 

 River Feeder was in no way necessary : that it should have been at all construct- 

 ed seems only explained by the apparent economy of its choice, which would 

 weigh with inexperienced men. The least disinterested examination of the 

 ground, and an ordinary calculation of the consequences would have given an aa- 

 Bwer to the problem. The expense of the dam and the 21 miles of feeder, and ad- 

 ditional cost of locks and the unnecessary lockage, ought to hav^ suggested, even 

 to a tyro, that the expenditure would have been greater than deepening by 7 feet, 

 14 miles of Canal already constructed. For some years past, the fashion has beeu 

 to speak in complimentary terms, of the energy of those who were most imme- 

 diately connected with this work. The writer, who traces its history dipassion- 



