A MAMMOTH CANAL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8588, 7 August 1899, Page 4

A MAMMOTH CANAL.

"Tin; career of prosperity which the Manchester ship canal appears to have entered upon at last has inspired Brussels to favor a similar project, for that city," snys the London Daily Mail. "It is proposed In make the city a maritime port, with (look accommodation and a basin for shipping, comprising about 30. 000 acres. The canal will be about seventy-live miles long. The work has not yet been beyim, but it, is said there is no doubt Unit the scheme will be carried through. Both the Manchester ship canal ana the projected waterway in Belgium sink into insignificance ivhen compared with tho Russian canal which is now being built fiom the Baltic to the Black Sea. It is to be 10S0 miles long, large enough to permit the largest warship to pass through. It will have a width at the top of 217 feet, and 117 feet at the bottom, with a depth of 28 J feet. The canal is beiiig so strongly built that vessels may steam through it. at the rate of six knots an hour. It, will take six days for a large vessel to puss through it, travelling night and day. The canal is to be lighted along the whole course by electricity, and the total cost is estimated at about; £21,000,000. Four ye.irs will be required to complete the undertaking. The advantages, commercial and otherwise, which Russia expects to derive from the making of this mammoth canal will more than compensate for the enormous outlay, and tlio scheme is viewed very favorably throughout the Czar's dominions."