The HolsIein Canal, which will connect the North Sea with the Baltic, and which will be of material service to commerce, was begun in 1887.
'Mention may also be made of the plan for a canal to join the Caspian and the Black Sea and of the scheme to join the Bay of Biscay by a ship canal with the Gulf of Lyons.
Existing European existing canals, the following enume ration embraces some of the more important: The Eider Canal, twenty-five miles long, between the North Sea and the Baltic; the Ruhr Canal, for the improvement of the navigation of the river Ruhr, forty-five miles long, with fourteen locks; the Ludwig Canal, connecting the Regnitz (a secondary tributary of the Rhine) and the Altmfilil (a tribntary of the Danube), one hundred and five miles long, with ninety-one locks, and constituting part of a continuous waterway between the Black- Sea and the German Ocean; the Miililroser or Frederick-William's Canal, uniting the Spree and the Odcr; the Voorne Canal, in South Hol land, which pennits the passage of the largest merchantmen directly to Rotterdam, despite the shallow months of the Maas; the before-mentioned North Holland Canal between Amsterdam and the harbor of Nieuwendiep by-the-Helder, fifty miles long; the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, one hun dred and twenty miles long; the Trent and Mersey Canal, one hundred and six miles long; the Oxford Canal, eighty-two miles long, which pro vides navigation from Coventry to Oxford, while the Grand Junction Canal joins this with the Thames; the Canal du Midi, one hundred and fifty miles long, which unites the waters of the Garonne with the Mediterra nean; the Canal du Centre, from Digoin, on the Loire, to Chidons-sur SaOne, seventy-five miles long; the Canal de Bourgogne, uniting the Yonne and the Saone; the Languedoc Canal (168r), between the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean, one hundred and forty-eight miles long-, with one hundred and two locks, fifty-five aqueducts and ninety-two bridges; and the Rhone-Rhine Canal, over two hundred miles long.
The Canals of the Unilea' Slates, which include many important works in addition to those mentioned below, have exercised a wonderful influence on the development of the internal commerce of the country, and, afford ing, as they do, the cheapest routes for the transportation of crude materials that can be shipped in bulk, they exert a wholesome reg,ulating influence on the cost of transportation by the railroad lines, with which they are still able to compete. The principal canals in America are the Erie Canal, in the State of New York, joining the waters of the Great Lakes with the Hudson, three hundred and sixty-three miles long; the Champlain Canal, joining Lake Champlain and the Hudson, sixty-six miles long; the Wel land Canal, thirty-five miles long-, connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario, avoiding Niagara Falls; etc. The influence of the Erie Canal in the deYel
opment of the Western States of the Union and in promoting the commer cial supremacy of New York City is a matter of history.
Inclinea' Planes have been successfully adopted in place of locks as a means of saving water. They were first introduced in 1789 on the Ketling Canal, in Shropshire, and have been extensively employed in the United States. On the Morris Canal, connecting the Delaware and, Hudson Riv ers, both locks and incline planes are used. The canal has a total length of one hundred and one miles, the total difference in level being- 1337 feet. Of this, 223 feet were overcome by locks and 1334 feet by inclined planes, of which twenty-three are employed on this canal, with gradients of about r in To and an average lift of 38 feet. The boats are floated upon a cradle mounted on wheels and are easily raised up the incline by water-power.
Figure 4 (pi. 32) exhibits the appearance of one of these inclines (with gradients of in 24 and r in 12) on the canal connecting- the Lake of Drau sen at Elbing, in East Prussia, with the Oberland lakes, at Mohrungen and Ostenrode. When at rest, a carriage is in the upper basin of the canal, and one in the lower sunk to such a depth that an approaching boat may be floated upon it and firmly secured thereto by means of chains. The move ment of the carria,ge with its load upon the incline is effected by means of a wire rope driven by a stationary engine placed at the summit of the in cline. The carriage conveying the boats rims upon rails, the bed of the cradle being maintained in a horizontal position by giving the front mid back set of wheels a different diameter, to neutralize the effect of the incline. By such expedients, heavy canal-boats weighing with their loads from thirty to fifty tons and over are transferred quickly and safely from one level to another. To avoid the objection that has been made to this mode of transference that long and heavily-laden boats would be severely strained when raised out of the water in the manlier above described, the cradle is placed in an iron caisson containing water, in which the boat is floated, and in this manner transferred.