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St.Lawrence WaterwaylsN eeded Entire Country Will Benefit from Providing Deep Water Route from Lakes to Ocean BY PROF. ANDERS F. LINDBLAD Assistant Professor, Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, University of Michigan N THE Great Lakes, the United States possesses the greatest in- land waterway in the world. Its navigable length is about 1400 miles. Before improvements. were made, some of the ports and the connecting rivers and channels were only a few feet in depth, but the more important harbors have now a depth of 23 feet, and the channels and the locks have an available draft of 20 to 22 feet. Depth Still Small The Welland canal, connecting Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, has still a depth of only 14 feet. This small draft prohibits passage of any of the larger lake vessels. The | tonnage passing through this canal is, there- fore, comparatively unimportant and amounts to only about 2% million tons against over 100 million tons passing through the Soo. Work is now being done by the ‘Canadian gov- DISTANCE BY WATER DULUTH TO BUFFALO CHICAGO He Sy PIONTREAL —ysro —_—_sfyoo ernment to rebuild and deepen this canal so as to permit even the largest lake freighters to pass down to Lake Ontario. While the present Welland canal has 25 locks, which can not take vessels longer than 260 feet, with 14 feet draft, the new canal will have only 7 locks, which will be 800 feet long, 80 feet wide and have an avail- able draft of 25 feet. Even the largest lake vessels will be able to go through these locks. This new canal will add another 200 miles to the navigable length of the Great ‘Lakes system; and, all that then stands between it and deep water is a stretch of 182 miles between the east end of Lake Ontario and the deep part of the St. Lawrence river. At present, the up- per part of the river is made naviga- ble for vessels of 14 feet draft through a series of canals. The plans to re- build these have recently been the NAUTICAL. “S00 ~ — Aa WEW YORK To LIVERPOOL| 3,073 MONTRERL-*- — «— | 2,785 LAWE MICH/IGRH CHICHGO SCALE 2900 OF MILES 40 10 390 = te : - hay mS iy > & Md) ‘ss te BUFFALO NJ DISTANCE BY FRA/L CHICAGO To NEW YORK BORFRLO A> <n —— «sor subject for lively discussions. Probab- ly no other engineering project of the present day is. of greater portance to the Middle West. Those who back the proposed deep- water canal have collected a mass of data showing that the cost of trans- portation will be lowered for many of the products of the West. They also point out that the pro- ject, at the same time, provides for the development of hydroelectric power plants capable of generating about 4 million horsepower. im- Length of Season There seems to be no real differ- ence of opinion regarding the feasi- bility of the project from the engineer- ing point of view. ‘Some of the op- ponents, however, claim that it will be a failure as far as navigation is concerned. They say that very few ocean ships will be able to use the STATUTE NILES W/2 440 1036 490 PROPOSEO (CANAL 182 HILES WELLAND CANAL, DETROIT. " KCLEVELAND TOLEDO NEW YORK : FIG. 1-MAP OF GREAT LAKES SHOWING CONNECTING CHANNELS AND PROPOSED ST. LAWRENCE CANAL 327