BOAT CANALS. History.—Canals date from a period long anterior to the Christian era and were employed as means of navigation and com munication by the Assyrians, Egyptians, Hindus, and Chinese. The royal canal of Babylon was built about B.C. 600. As an interesting instance of canal construction, previous to the Fifteenth Century, may be mentioned the Grand Canal of China. built in the Thirteenth Century to con nect the Yang-tse-kiang and Pei-ho. This canal is 650 miles long; is largely composed of canal ized rivers: is about 5 to 6 feet deep, and has inclined plane: up which the boats are hauled by capstans and made to slide down a paved track. The lock is -aid to have been invented in 1481 by two Italian engineers, but the merit of this intention is also claimed by Holland. The known facts are that canal locks were used in both }Tolland and Italy in the Fifteenth Century, and that by their development a wonderful impetus was given to canal construction, which had pre viously been confined to such countries as per mitted canals of a single level or reach to be used. The first European country to take up the construction of navigation canals on a system atic plan and extensive scale was France. The Briare Canal. connecting the rivers Seine and Loire. was built from 1605 to 1642; the Orleans Canal was built in 1675. and the Languedoc Canal in 666-8T. For the time this last was an enormous work—the canal connecting the Bay of Biscay with the :Mediterranean by an arti ficial waterway 148 miles long and feet deep, with 119 locks having an aggregate rise of 600 feet. and capable of floating vessels of 100 ton-:. In Russia, a great system of canals connecting Saint Petersburg with the Caspian Sea was de veloped during the Eighteenth Century; a canal connecting the North Sea and Baltic 100 miles long was finished in 1785; the Gotha Canal, 280 Continental country which devoted the great est attention to canal construction, up the development and extension of the canal system and railway system at the same time. By a law passed in 1879, France made provisions for uni formity in its canal system by establishing a depth of feet of water and locks feet long by 17 feet wide. France now has upward of 3000 miles of canal and 2000 miles of canalized rivers. The countries of Continental Europe continue to manifest considerable activity in enlarging and extending their boat-canal sys tems, while England and America have practi cally abandoned the development of their sys tems of navigable waterways.
The first canals in Great Britain are generally conceded to have been the Foss dyke and Caes dyke in Lincolnshire. II and 40 miles long re spectively, the former of which is still navigable. These channels are stated to have been first ex cavated by the Romans and to have been enlarged in the Twelfth Century. It was not until the
latter part of the Eighteenth Century, however, that canal-building assumed importance in Eng land through the energy and liberality of the Duke of Bridgewater and the skill of the engineer, James Brindley, the success of whose works stimu lated others to engage in similar undertakings. The era of canal-building, ushered in by the Duke of Bridgewater by the construction of the Bridge water Canal in 1761, continued until 1834. when the last inland boat canal was built in Great Britain. It is interesting to note that from 1791 to 1794 speculation in canal shares became a mania in England, and finally resulted in a financial crash and the ruin of many persons. At the end of 1834 there were about 3800 miles of canal in Great Britain, of which about 3000 miles were in England. The following may be men tioned as among the more notable of the British canals: Grand Canal, Dublin to Ballinasloe, Ireland, 164 miles long, 40 feet \vide, 6 feet deep, built in 1765; Royal Canal. Dublin to Torinans burg, Ireland, built after the Grand Canal; Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, Sharpness to Gloucester, 17 miles; Caledonian Canal, crossing 'cut In ad, 17 feet deep; torte and Clyde Canal, 35 miles long and 10 feet deep; and the Crinan ('anal across the peninsula of .Kintyre, 12 feet deep. The depth of the great majority of British canals, however, varies from feet to 5 feet, and many of these are now owned by the rail In the United States the construction of the Erie Canal opened up the development of the canal system, which now aggregates upward of 4200 miles, located mostly in New York, Penn sylvania, (thin, Indiana, and Virginia. The first man who really saw the future of canal com munication was George Washington, whose main efforts, however, were directed toward the con nection of the Chesapeake and the Ohio Biver. Canal-building continued active in the United States until about 1337. After this date atten tion was turned chiefly to railway construction. Space is not available here to trace the develop ment of the eanal system of the United States in detail. but the essential facts respecting some of the more important enterprises will he given. In 1793 a canal was built around the rapids of the Connecticut River at South Hadley, Mass., and another, 3 miles long, was built around Turners Falls on the same stream in 1790-PG. The canal at South Hadley is interesting as being the first canal built in America, and as having the two levels connected by an incline, up and down which the boats were raised and lowered in a tank or caisson filled with water and propelled by cables operated by Neater-wheels.