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ON THE HYDROLOGY OP THE BASIN 



a lift of three feet ten inches. The Grenville Canal, still further up stream, is a canal 

 having the same object, five and three-quarter miles in length, having six locks, over- 

 coming a lift of forty-six feet: the total lift for the three canals being 72.88 feet ascending, 

 descending 12.93 feet, or 59.95 feet. 



All locks upon the system last mentioned have a depth of five feet upon the sills, are 

 one hundred feet long, nineteen feet wide, and were constructed before the year 1833. 



The Rideau Canal, of which there is a very full description given in an elaborate paper 

 by Lieutenant Frome, late of the Royal Engineers, in the R. E. papers, is a work of con- 

 siderable importance, and was constructed at a very large cost by the British Government. 

 It was commenced about the year 1826, and completed about 1831. Its supply of water 

 is from the Rideau Lake, from which lake the river flows in a general northeasterly and 

 southwesterly direction. The length of the canal is about eighty-four and a quarter miles. 

 Its cross section is forty-eight feet wide at the top, twenty-eight feet at the bottom, with 

 five feet depth of water. There are thirty-three locks, one hundred and thirty-four feet 

 long, thirty-three feet wide, and the depth on the sills is five feet. The greatest lift is 

 fourteen feet six inches. With regard to the construction of the canal, it was carried on 

 under the direction of Colonel By, whose name first characterized the locality of the city 

 which has been chosen as the future seat of government in Canada. 



The paper to which allusion has been made will have afforded to engineers some inter- 

 esting information, and an account of difficulties of no common occurrence. It is to be 

 regretted that the course of trade, which of late years has rather tended by the more direct 

 route up the St. Lawrence, has appeared to demand less of that attention to the mainte- 

 nance of the works on this navigation than its importance in a national point of view 

 seems yet to demand. 



Details of the traffic carried on this canal, are given in the trade and navigation returns 

 of Canada, by which it will be seen that the traffic through this district is of very consid- 

 erable importance. The works now described would include all the works undertaken up 

 to about the year 1819; and previous to which time, the attention of the authorities in 

 the State of New York was directed to the importance of bringing down a line of canal 

 connecting Lake Erie with the tidewater navigation at Albany, a work which was pro- 

 ceeded upon with great alacrity, and completed with that degree of energy, which appears 

 to characterize the people of the Northern United States. 



To this canal, and its works, reference is made in another place. The effect on the 

 minds of the public men in Canada was immediately to provide for the carrying out of a 

 work, which is the most important of all those that have occupied the attention of the 

 public in Canada, namely, the construction of the Welland Canal. This work intersects 



