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THE ST. LAWRENCE -- GREAT LAKES WATERWAY The St. Lawrence River-Great Lakes waterway extends 2300 miles from the Atlantic Ocean to the head of the group of inland seas which lie at the heart of the North American continent. The waters of the Great Lakes feed the St. Lawrence, making it one of the most regular-flowing rivers in the world. Sailing the locks and channels and the lakes of this long fresh-water route, ships are lifted 602 feet from the level of the sea, As a self-sustaining and self-liquidating enterprise, however, the St. Lawrence Seaway extends from Montreal Harbour to Lake Erie; it includes the Welland Canal. Features of the route are shown on the keyed map. In the early part of the sixteenth century the French explorer, Jacques Cartier, sailing up the broad St. Lawrence from the Atlantic was turned back by the rushing waters of the Lachine Rapids just west of what is now Montreal and was thereby forced to abandon his dream of finding a route to the fabled Orient. Other rapids and falls lay at intervals beyond. At various times during the intervening 300-odd years, canals and locks were built around the natural barriers to navigation, in the St. Lawrence River and in the waters connecting the Great Lakes. The earliest canals were dug to allow water-borne passage of the "canots de maitre" of the fur-trading voyageurs and to carry Explorer and Priest into the Indian-populated fastnesses of North America. With settlement and development of industry and agriculture, canaliza- tion was spurred on by the desire to make use of the economical water route which the waters of the Great Lakes Basin offered for the transportation of goods in and out of this vast area of the con- tinent. By 1900, 14 feet was the regulating depth of canals, into the Great Lakes, although certain of them--Sault Ste. Marie, for example-- were deeper. In 1932 the existing Welland Canal was opened. It was the fourth canal built between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie to overcome the great Falls of Niagara. By 1959, as a result of the joint efforts of the Canadian St. Law- rence Seaway Authority and the United States Saint Lawrence Sea- way Development Corporation, 27 foot depths were available from Montreal to Lake Erie. Deepening the channels above Lake Erie to Seaway standards by the Corps of Engineers, United States Army, is proceeding apace, and by 1962, 27-foot depths will be available throughout the Upper Lakes. The Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario and the Power Authority of the State of New York have completed works in the International Rapids Section of the St. Lawrence River to convert into electricity the energy that once expended itself by tumbling through the rapids west of Cornwall, Ontario. A 90-square-mile power-pool was formed, bounded on the North by Canada and on the South by the United States and ships now sail its surface. Turbines installed and in production at the Barnhart Island (U.S.).-Cornwall (Canada) generating plants produce 940,000 kilowatts for each country, to supply an important part of the ever-growing need by home and industry for vast amounts of electrical energy. By means' of a great international engineering scheme, the two demands for power and for passage were served. In the 400-mile journey between Montreal and Lake Erie (which stands at 572 feet above sea level) the Seaway system serves to lift or lower vessels 550 feet to or from the level of Montreal Harbour, situated 1,000 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Westward across Lake Erie, lie the dredged channels (the rise is eight feet) through the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River and beyond, across Lake Huron, the St. Mary's River and the locks at Sault Ste. Marie. The lift, by means of one of the four parallel United States locks at Saulte Ste. Marie, Michigan or the one Canadian lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, is some 22 feet, and thus, arriving upon the waters of Lake Superior, a ship will have climbed no less than 602 feet from the sea. PRACTICES AT THE LOCKS Vessels traveling this route are under their own power at all times, and sail individually. The lock side to which vessels secure, to be raised or lowered in passage, is manned at all locks by a St. Lawrence Seaway crew of four line-handlers and a lock master, around the clock, seven days a week, throughout the navigation season. A lock-motorman at each end of the lock completes the seven-man crew. There are three crews to each lock, working in eight-hour shifts, or 21 men detailed to this work at each of the 15 Seaway locks. The Great Lakes area, bounded generally on the South by the United States and on the North by Canada, contains probably the greatest industrial complex of the world. The steel plants here (pro- ducing more than 30% of the world's steel) have called for over half a century upon the iron resources (and the coal and limestone) of the 475