WELLAND CANAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 271, 31 October 1932, Page 11

WELLAND CANAL

GREAT TASK COMPLETE PART OF BIGGER SCHEME. ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY. When the Lemoyne, the largest freight boat on the Great Lakes of North America, steamed through the new Welland Ship Canal with 575,000 bushels of wheat, a record-breaking cargo, there was dedicated to the shipping of the world an engineering achiArement which ranks high in the world’s list of great accomplishments, states a recent message dispatched from Toronto, Canada. The formal opening of the canal by the GovernorGeneral of Canada was* an interesting feature of the Imperial Economic Conference.

The Welland Ship Canal is a vital link in a great inland transportation system which links lake ports on Upper Superior with the Atlantic. It unites Lake Erie and Lake Ontario by a channel twenty-five miles long paralleling the Niagara river ten miles distant, and in its length overcomes the drop of 327 feet which, on the river, brings into existence the mighty Niagara Falls. The work was undertaken by the Federal Government nineteen years ago, and has been pursued under four Prime Ministers. The cost was about £27,000,000. In construction of the canal the Government has had in mind its adaptation to what is called the St. Lawrence Waterway project, for which Canada and the United States now have signed a treaty—subject, however, to ratification by Parliament and Congress. The project involves the elimination of rapids and provision of channels for tho largest lake boats in tho international section of the St. Lawrence, and thus it would be practicable for all but the largest passenger liners to sail 2000 miles inland by river and lake and canal to the head of Lake Superior. In the proposed arrangement of costs Canada is given credit for expenditure on the Welland Canal, and the total remaining cost to the Dominion will be about £8,000,000. The province of Ontario, in return for valuable power rights, is tq.contribute some £12,000,000. ENGINEERING SKILL. The Welland Canal has had three predecessors, the first opened in 1829, and each larger than the one preceding it. The new Welland ranks with Panama, Kiel, Suez, Manchester, and North Sea canals as among the greatest in the world. It has seven service locks with an average lift of 46J feet, and the guard lock is 1380 feet, longest and largest in existence. The service locks are 860 feet long, built to provi for ships of ever-increasing lengiu, and the canal has a navigation depth of 25 feet, a width of 80 feet. The average trip through the canal will take eight hours, althought it has been made in a little more than six. The canal has safeguards which are new developments of engineering skill. Accidents occasioned by incorrect timing of control operation or improper use of any control are obviated by electrical units which will operate only in the correct sequence. Every gate, each of the twenty-one movable bridges which cross the canal, every signal, is operated electrically. Every gate —and the gate leaves are five feet thick and vary in weight from 190 to 490 tons—is duplicated in case of emergency. Construction involved excavation of 9,070,000 cubic yards of rock and 51,195,000 cubic yards of earth, the use of more than 90,000,000 pounds of steel and 3,516,000 cubic yards of concrete.