New York has recognized the supreme weakness of most Amencan waterways the lack of terminals and efficient freight-handling machinery and is supplying these needs in the Barge Canal. However, it was eight years after the canal was authorized before the terminals were added. But their construction has been pushed with such vigor that they are ready with the opening of the completed canal. These ter minals are located at some 50 cities and vil lages along the canals as well as on some of their connecting natural watercourses. The character of the terminal varies to meet the needs of each particular locality, but in gen eral a terminal consists of a suitable place for dockage, the machinery for handling goods quickly and cheaply, a building for temporary storage and in many places connections with adjacent railways. The purpose of the State is to furnish a place where any shipper or boat man may have the advantages of efficient ter minal facilities at a reasonable cost. Recent legislation has vested the State Public Service Commission with power to require connections to be built between railroads and canal ter minals, as well as authority to regulate freight rates and control combinations of rail and water routes.
Since the Barge Canal lies so largely in lake and river channel, various aids to navigation are needed, such as lighthouses, range towers, beacons, buoys and markings on bridges. Lights, either fixed, flashing or occulting, are displayed by night. The Federal practice of marlcing channels has been adopted, but with the interpretation that upstream means proceed ing away from the ocean toward the interior, irrespective of local conditions of actual up stream or downstream. Thus in going westerly from the Hudson on the Erie Canal or in pro ceeding away from the Erie Canal on any of the other canals, red lights are on the right or starboard side of the channel and white lights are on the left or port side. The buoys and beacons which show red lights are painted red, while those which show white lights are painted black, but this latter color will probably be changed to white.
A study of the distribution of population in New York State reveals some important condi tions. It is discovered that within two miles of the State waterways live 731/2 per cent of the people of the State. If the distance is ex tended so as to include the territory within 5, 10 and 20 miles, the percentages are 77, 82 and 87, respectively. Looking from another angle, it appears that within 20 miles lies 46 per cent of the area of the whole State. If lines are drawn on a map one at 50 and one at 70 miles from the waterways we find that 71 and 88 per cent, respectively, of the area lie within them. These are the respective distances which motor trucks of 3/ and 2 tons' capacity can cover in a day's run, going and returning. This fertile field for motor truck operation in connection with the enlarged canals is full of promise. The importance commercially of the conditions revealed by this study is not gen erally appreciated, but a little consideration will discover what it means to the State and to the country at large that there live within a half hour's walk of the waterways three-quarters of the population of the State, about 7,000,000 people, or 7 per cent of the whole United States population, whose products and whose supplies may have available a means of cheap transportation.
The Barge Canal is the essential connecting link between two extensive and important waterway systems, which are in part existent and in part only projected. To the west lie the Great Lakes. Four noteworthy canals, to con nect with these lakes, are in a fair way to be built. At the seaboard a project known as the Intracostal canals would give an inside pas sage along a large portion of our Atlantic Coast. The Federal government has made sur veys for most of these canals and some it has already built. Of this whole vast scheme, the mileage now in existence is already great 1,500 miles in the Lakes and 800 miles in New York waterways. The intracoastal chain would add 1,800 miles and the projects adjacent to the Lakes at least 800 miles more.
At the beginning of the 1918 season, the Federal government, as a war measure, assumed control of the Barge Canal in so far as traffic is concerned.
Certain statistical data follow : Erie Canal-340.7 miles long; 35 locks, 674.45 feet total lockage; 2 guard-locks; 1 terminal lock; 6 junction locks; 4 feeder locks. Cham plain Canal 62.6 miles long; 11 locks, 168.3 feet total lockage; 2 junction locks. Oswego Canal 23.8 miles long; 7 locks, 118.6 feet total lockage. Cayuga and Seneca Canal 92.7 miles long, including Cayuga and Seneca lakes; 4 locks, 71.0 feet total lockage. Fifty-seven locks, 2 guard-locks and 1 terminal lock, all of Barge Canal dimensions, and 12 smaller locks have been built. Construction has included 30 new dams, 5 old dams with new crests and 5 old dams used without change; also 300 bridges and various other structures, including guard gates, culverts, spillways, bulkheads, waste weirs, by-passes, flumes, terminals, gate-houses, power-houses, warehouses, lighthouses and range towers. The total number of all kinds of structures exceeds 700. Some entirely new types of structure, siphon spillways and auto matic crests on dams, have been originated in Barge Canal construction, and some novel and bold adaptations in design have occurred, such as the bridge type of movable dam, the siphon lock, the sector gate and an enormous Taintor gate. The first construction was begun on 24 April 1905; the first work on the Erie on 7 June 1905. Many finished portions have been put into use upon completion. The whole canal with full depth, but with isolated parts not yet of full width, is being put into use in 1918. A boat utilizing full lock dimensions can carry about 3,000 tons, but probably not many boats more than half that capacity will be used.