THE ISTHMIAN SHIP RAIL WA Y. 401 



in an interview with a reporter of a city paper we cull the following items of 

 interest : 



" I visited Europe to look into the question and cost of construction of rail- 

 roads for the purposes of taking ships out of water and transferring them to rail- 

 roads, and the best and most economical systems. I examined very particularly 

 the Anderton Barge Lift, by which the Bridgewater Canal and the river Weaver 

 are put in communication with one another. The surface of the canal is fifty-one 

 feet above the river, and, to avoid the use of locks, a section of the canal about 

 130 feet long is supported on the ends of long, vertical hydraulic plungers or 

 rams, and lowered, with 250 tons of water in it, to the surface of the river, with 

 a canal-boat in it. At the same time another section of the canal, of the same 

 size, supported in precisely the same manner, is raised up with a canal-boat in it 

 from the river and joined to the canal. The operation is done in three minutes. 

 The machinery has been in operation for six years, without entailing a single cent 

 for repairs, and without an accident occurring during that time. The Govern- 

 ment of France had the work examined critically, and has contracted with the 

 builders of it to apply the system upon one of the French canals. Then instead 

 of lifting 250 tons it will lift 1,000. The Belgian Government has also investi- 

 gated the subject, and has ordered a similar lift for one of its canals to raise 1,300 

 tons. The engineer who designed and constructed the Anderton Barge Lift, has 

 written to me proposing to erect works at each end of the ship railway, on a plan 

 somewhat similar, by which ships of any size may be raised in thirty minutes, 

 forty-six feet high, ready for the journey over the railway. The plan which they 

 propose is now in operation in Bombay, where a weight of 10,000 tons has been 

 lifted in this way. Another similar dock is in operation at Malta, and another at 

 the Victoria Docks, London. The work is designed by Edwin Clark, who was 

 Chief Assistant Engineer to the celebrated Robert Stephenson. The method 

 proposed for the Ship Railway does not contemplate raising vessels in pontoons of 

 water as at Anderton. In the Malta and Victoria Docks many vessels have been 

 taken out with full cargoes on board. They are taken entirely out of the water 

 — dry — on an iron platform which is suspended between two rows of hydraulic 

 presses. On the platform a section of the ship railway would be laid to corre- 

 spond with the railway on shore. When the platform is up the ship car would be 

 run on to it and then the platform would be lowered down into the water suffi- 

 ciently deep for the ship to float over it. The various supports necessary to sus- 

 tain her. would be moved up automatically in contact with her keel and bottom, 

 and she would then be raised out of water until the rails on the platform would 

 come in connection with the terminus of the ship railway. This being done,' the 

 locomotives to haul her would be attached to the car which would then be started 

 across the Isthmus and lowered into the water at the other side by the same 

 means." 



Captain Eads took occasion to correct the impression that he designed car- 

 rying the vessels over in tanks of water on wheels. 



" I never advocated any such method, as it would be useless expense to 



