CANALS OF CANADA

(Paper read before the Royal Society of Canada, 1893) by Thomas C. Keefer, C.M.G, F.R.S.C.

INTRODUCTION.

The Bridgewater canal, which inaugurated a system of inland navigation that gave to Britain above five thousand miles of artificial waterways before the railway era, and established the reputation of James Brindley as the Father of English Hydraulic Engineers, was authorized by the Parliament of Great Britain in the same year which Wolfe scaled the heights of Abraham and made Canada a British possession.

The opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830 was followed by the opening of a Canadian railway in 1836, which connected the navigation of the St. Lawrence with that of Lake Champlain. In like manner (but at a much earlier date) canal construction in England was followed by canal agitation in her new possessions upon the St. Lawrence.

Silas Deane, a Connecticut man, who had been a member of the first Continental Congress, and was with Franklin in Paris (in 1776), brought the matter of a canal from the St. Lawrence to Lake Champlain, via Chambly, before Haldimand and his successor Lord Dorchester, Governors of Quebec, as early as 1775. He appears also to have advocated a canal making this connection above Montreal - a project since known as the Caughnawaga canal. Lord Dorchester expressed the opinion that such a canal "would be practicable and useful both in a commercial and political view." Adam Lymburner, in 1791, renewed the proposal, as noted, for an outlet for Vermont and northern New York. Ira Allen, in 1796, addressed the Duke of Portland "on behalf of the State of Vermont" upon the same subject. Some one in the Duke's office was apprehensive that such a canal might "tend to disseminate republican principles among His Majesty's Canadian subjects;" but it may be assumed that the needs of the St. Lawrence route, rather then fear of political consequences, relegated this canal scheme to a later period.

The first lock canals {There was a canal partly built without locks, previous to 1779 around Lachine - 1701-18 - a partial description follows. Through this the boats were to be hauled up against the current, and it was undertaken through the efforts of the Sulpician Fathers.} in Canada were build upon the St. Lawrence around the upper and lower of the three rapids between Lake St François and Lake St. Louis, at the Coteau and the Cascades. They were promoted by Haldimand, then Governor of Quebec, and were built by Royal Engineers between 1779 and 1783, both for the transport of military stores and for commercial purposes. The locks were of stone {In fair preservation to-day, much of the stone and mortar being intact.} less than forty feet long and only six feet wide, and but thirty feet of water, which was as much as could be used in the then condition of the rapids elsewhere; and sufficient for the only boat, besides canoes, then in use, which was the bateau - a flat-bottomed, sharp-pointed skiff about five and one-half feet beam and thrity-five feet long - about the proportions of the Venetian gondola. These locks were enlarged {Not the original locks.} (1800-4) to one hundred and ten feet in length and twelve feet in width, so as to pass a "brigade" of six bateaux at one lockage. The depth of water was increased to four feet. This provision for flotilla is now our latest development at Sault Ste. Marie - a return to first principles, which, it is to be regretted, cannot be carried upon other canals with heavy traffic and a short navigable season. These enlarged locks displaced the bateaux by inviting the "Durham" boat, an American barge, which carried three hundred and fifty barrels of flour - about ten times {French measure.} as much as the early bateaux. Before the construction of the Erie canal, northern New York, as well as Vermont, exported via the River St. Lawrence. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of flour and bushels of wheat were shipped from the St. Lawrence in the closing years of the last and the opening ones of this centrury.

The first lock between Lake Huron and Lake Superior was made by a Canadian company in the closing years of the last century. One of the northwest fur trading companies of Montreal cut a roadway forty-five feet wide across the portage on the north or Canadian side of the Sault. Ste. Marie and opened "a canal upwards of three hundred feet in length, with a lock which raised the water nine feet." This lock, thirty-eight feet long and eight feet and three-quarters wide, was built like a flume, the posts of which at the lower end were high enough to permit boats to pass under their cape. A windlass raised the lower gates, but the upper ones were "folding," with sluices therein to fill the lock. A planked flume the width of the lock, three hundred feet long and six feet high, conducted the boats into this lock. A round log cribbing the whole length of the canal, twelve feet in width, forming a tow-path for the oxen used in dragging the boats up-stream. As the whole fall at the Sault is eighteen feet, and the lock only dealt with half of this, the canal or channel above must have had a surface inclination of three feet in a thousand. It was completed in 1798. In July, 1814, this post was pillaged and burned by Major Holmes at the head of one hundred and fifty Americans, when it is supposed that this lock (with the wooden banks of its canal) was "burned to the water's edge."

FRENCH REGIME.

{Quebec fell September 13, 1759.}

In the first year of the eighteenth century, Catalogne, military engineer of the King of France (who was probably the first engineer sent to Canada), commenced a channel from the St. Lawrence at Lachine to a marshy lake on a direct route to Montreal, from which lake it was connected with and followed the "Little River" to its outlet in front of the city. This, like the boat canal of 1798 at Sault Ste. Marie, was intended for a combined canal mill-race, but without any lock. This work was undertaken by Dollier de Casson, Superior of the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, - but his death in 1701 arrested it. In 1717 it was resumed, but after an expenditure of twenty thousand francs it was abandoned on account of the cost of the necessary rock cut at Lachine. This was, in all probability, the first rock excavation for canal purposes upon the St. Lawrence. {First under authentic record in North America.} For the rock excavation in connection with the first locks built by the English more than half a century later, Cornish miners were procured.

PROVINCIAL EFFORTS.

The Lachine Canal was taken up by the Legislature of Lower Canada after the war of 1812, and money voted in 1815 therefor, but nothing was done. In 1819 a company was incorporated, which did not proceed. In 1821, Government commissioners were appointed and the work was completed in 1825. This first canal was twenty-eight feet wide on bottom, forty-eight feet wide at water-surface, and four and a half feet deep. The locks were seven in number, one hundred feet long, and twenty feet wide in chambers, and built of excellent masonry. The total rise from Montreal to Lachine is forty-five feet. The canal had been projected and its construction advocated by Adam Lymburner in 1791, but the reason why locks were first constructed higher up the St. Lawrence (at the Cascades and Coteau, 1783) was because Lachine is only seven miles from Montreal, and was the starting point of the brigades of bateaux, the loads for which could be carted from Montreal.

The first Lachine canal was doubtless built as part of a system, because a joint commission for Upper and Lower Canada had in 1818 reported in favor of a canal system for the St. Lawrence, with four feet depth of water, that being the depth of the Erie canal. Within a year after the opening of the Lachine, Col. By - the Royal Engineer then constructing the Rideau canal - recommended for the St. Lawrence longer and wider locks, with double the depth of water, and in 1832, Upper Canada voted for a minimum of nine feet water. Nevertheless, twenty years elapsed after the opening of the first Lachine canal before the last of the St. Lawrence canals was completed, and this was then on a scale as to dimensions of locks and depth of water more than double that of the old Lachine.

The next in order of construction, although not of position upon the main line of the St. Lawrence navigation, was:

The Welland Canal. A joint committee of both Houses of the Parliament of Upper Canada was appointed in 1816 to report upon inland navigation, and in 1821 a commission was named, which in 1823 reported in favor of constructing the Welland canal (which had been agitated before 1818 by the late Hon. W.H. Merritt) for the class of vessels then navigating the lakes. Instead, however, of being undertaken as a Government work, a joint stock company was formed in 1824 and ground was broken the same year. Their first approval was a boat canal combined with an inclined railway, instead of locks, and with a tunnel through the summit. This was abandoned the following year for an open canal with locks. It was opened in 1829 (with forty wooden locks, one hundred and ten feet long by twenty-two feet wide in the chambers, and eight feet depth of water) by the passage of a British and American schooner from Lake Ontario into Lake Erie by the route of the Welland, and of the Niagara river into which it flows, - above the falls of the latter. In 1833 this canal was extended upon the direct line of Lake Erie, but was fed from a higher level in consequence of slides in the summit cut, which took place in 1828. The Grand river, which was the feeder, was deficient in dry seasons; after the Union, {Upper and Lower Canada, 1841.} therefore, when the canal was purchased by the Government, it was determined (in 1843) to lower the whole summit level (which is more than half the length of the canal), so that Lake Erie could become the feeder. This undertaking proved to be the work of several decades, carried on, as it necessarily was, subject to the maintenance of the navigation, and the necessity of deepening the summit cut (from which the water could not safely be withdrawn) by dredging, and the towing of much of this dredged material half the length of the canal in order to dump it into Lake Erie. The dredging could only be made during the navigation season, and the deepening, elsewhere, only in winter. It was, therefore, not until 1881 that Lake Erie became the feeder. This canal was twenty-seven miles long with three hundred and forty-six feet of lockage, or fifteen feet more than the difference of level between Erie and Ontario; but since 1881 the lockage has been reduced by that much and is now the minimum.

Upon the union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1841 steps were taken by the Province of Canada to enlarge the Welland (the wooden locks of which were falling into decay) and the Lachine, and to complete the remainder of the St. Lawrence canals - only one of which - the Cornwall - had been commenced by Upper Canada before the Union. The forty wooden locks on the Welland were, by increasing lifts, replaced by twenty-seven stone ones, each one hundred and fifty feet long by twenty-six and one-quarter feet wide in chambers, with nine feet of water at the mitre sill, and the canal was completed upon this scale in 1846. The first enlargement of the Welland was contemporaneous with the completion of the St. Lawrence system, which had been commenced at Cornwall in 1834. The Lachine canal was a barge canal, used in connection with the military canals of the Ottawa and Rideau route, and the Welland a ship canal connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario. Between these there existed on the St. Lawrence no advance in heavy freight transportation over that of the bateau or Durham boat of 1804. Great improvement in passenger transportation had been made by the introduction of steamers on Lake St. Louis and Lake St. Francis (reaches of the St. Lawrence), and on the river above the Long Sault; {Opposite Massena, N.Y.} and by their connection by portage or plank roads on which stages were established; but all the heavy freight was sent by the Ottawa and Rideau route to Kingston. {That is from Montreal to Ottawa via Ottawa river and the Carillon and Grenville canals, thence to Kingston via the Rideau canal system.}

UNITED CANADA.

The St. Lawrence Canals. The Cornwall canal was commenced by Upper Canada in 1834, suspended by the rebellion of 1837, and not resumed until after the reunion, when it was completed in 1843. Its lock dimensions were a great advance upon the old Lachine or upon the new Welland, being two hundred feet long by fifty-five feet wide in the chambers, and the depth of water nine feet. These dimensions appear to have been adopted to pass the short side-wheel steamers required for quick turning in running the rapids. There was no enlargement of this canal previous to the confederation of the British North American Provinces in 1867, because no greater dimensions were established by the Province of Canada in 1841 for the remainder of the St. Lawrence canals. This canal was eleven and one-half miles long with seven locks, and a total lockage of forty-eight feet. The breadth on bottom of canal was one hundred feet and on water surface one hundred and fifty feet.

Beauharnois Canal. This canal, entirely in Lower Canada, and the only one upon the south side of the St. Lawrence, was not commenced until after 1841, when (while maintaining the Cornwall length of lock and depth of water) the Government of United Canada reduced the width ten feet for all remaining St. Lawrence canal locks. It was commenced in 1842 and completed in 1845. The length of this canal is eleven and one quarter miles, with nine locks two hundred by forty-five in the chambers, nine feet water on the sills, and eighty-two and one-half feet total lockage. It is not being enlarged because a new canal {Soulanges canal.} several miles longer, but with fewer locks, is now being constructed (on the enlarged scale adopted after confederation) upon the opposite side of the St. Lawrence.

The Lachine Canal. The first enlargement of this old canal was in progress simultaneously with those above it, but it was not opened upon the new dimensions (similar to those of the Beauharnois) until 1848.

The Williamsburg Canals. The three smaller canals above the Cornwall, at "Farran's Point," "Rapide Plat" and "The Galops," known collectively as the Williamsburg canals (so called from their situation in a township of that name), were completed in 1847 upon the Beauharnois scale. These three canals, with a combined length of twelve miles and an aggregate lockage of thirty-one feet, are not necessary to the descending navigation, and are not used by the passenger steamers going up, - the rapids which they avoid being navigable in both directions by steamers; but for the upper one, "The Galops," a lock has been put in below the strongest current (about four thousand feet from the head), by which ascending boats may keep the river up to this lock, and thus avoid seven miles of canal. The section of the Galops rapids where the heaviest water is, has been deepened to seventeen feet to provide for the safe passage of descending lake vessels drawing fourteen feet while pitching through the swells of this rapid.

Thus upon the completion of the first enlargement of the Lachine canal, in 1848, a boat nearly one hundred and forty feet long, twenty-six feet beam, and nine feet draught could for the first time pass from Montreal to Chicago. The notable feature of the St. Lawrence section of the Canadian canals is that although there are forty miles of canal and over two hundred feet of lockage, steamers of five hundred tons and over daily descend from Lake Ontario to Montreal, during the navigable season, without using lock or canal. Though the fall is, in some of the rapids, over forty feet per mile, all are navigable downwards by boats drawing six to eight feet, according to river level.

THE DOMINION OF CANADA.

As the Province of Canada, in 1841, commenced the improvement of the inland navigation by the enlargement of the Welland and Lachine, and the completion of the remaining St. Lawrence canals with uniformity only as to depth of canal between tide-water and the upper lakes, so, thirty years later (after confederation in 1867 with the maritime provinces, and the acquisition of the Northwest Territories from the Hudsons Bay Company), the Dominion of Canada took up the question of inland navigation.

A canal commission was appointed in November, 1870, which reported in February, 1871, advising a uniform scale of navigation for the St. Lawrence and Welland canals, with locks two hundred and seventy feet long by forty-five feet wide in the chambers, and with twelve feet depth of water upon the mitre sills. Before, however, any locks were constructed, the Dominion Parliament, in 1875, without dealing with lock dimensions, ordered the enlarged canals to be deepened so as to pass vessels drawing fourteen feet of water.

In arriving at lock dimensions and draught of water the commission of 1871 seem to have been governed by the then prevailing size of the majority of the vessels on the upper lakes, as well as by the then depth of water in the harbors. But, while the commissioners recommended twelve feet, they gave the depth of seventeen harbors, twelve of which had, or were capable of having fourteen feet and over, and they stated that this draught had then been reached through the St. Clair Flats, and made the significant comment that "as fast as the channel was deepened the draught of the vessels increased." These considerations doubtless influenced Parliament in increasing the depth. Moreover, while providing a lock for vessels of two hundred and fifty feet length, the commissioners noted that fact that, in 1871, at least two screw steamers then in commission on the lakes were two hundred and sixty-five feet long, and they referred to the lock at Sault Ste. Marie, which had been then fifteen years in use with a length of three hundred and fifty feet. They thought it "extremely unwise to embark in magnificent schemes with a view of introducing ocean vessels into the canals or lakes," and therefore leaned to moderate conditions as defined by existing traffic instead of anticipating any such expansion as had already enforced two enlargements of our canals.

The final enlargement upon a uniform scale for all, except the single lock at Lake Superior, is now (1893) in progress but is only completed as regards the Welland canal, which was opened with its new locks and twelve feet of water in 1883, and with fourteen feet in 1887. The Lachine enlargement has been completed many years for twelve feet depth, but with its structures founded for fourteen feet; this is, however, useless for navigation purposes until the completion of the remainder of the St. Lawrence canals (all of which are now under contract to be completed in 1895), {These were completed in fall of 1899.} when steamers about two hundred and sixty feet length and forty-four and one-half feet beam can pass between Montreal and Lake Superior loaded down to fourteen feet in the canals.

Sault Ste. Marie. The canal commission of 1871 proposed to extend their uniform scale of lock dimensions (270 by 45 by 12) to Lake Superior, although there was then in operation upon the American side at the Sault two locks 350 by 70 by 12. It is fortunate that the construction of the canal at this point has been delayed until the present decade.

The Canadian canal now under construction at the Sault will have a single lock of eighteen feet lift, with a length of chamber of nine hundred feet, a width of sixty feet, and a depth of nineteen feet at "lowest recorded water level," which is said to be equivalent to the twenty-one feet at "mean low water," fixed for the new lock (Poe) in progress on the Michigan side. The length of nine hundred feet is "designed to pass three vessels at one lockage; one of the upper type, four hundred and twenty feet long, and two of the Welland Canal type, two hundred and fifty-five feet long." This official explanation of the length emphasizes the painful fact that the Welland type is not a lake one. No explanation of the width is given. Sixty feet is too wide for one vessel and not wide enough for two. The new American lock will be eight hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide, a width sufficient for two or three craft abreast. {Interesting here to note that the new contemplated lock on the American side is thirteen hundred and fifty feet long by seventy-five feet wide, and twenty-five feet on sills, approximately.}

Although Canada is only now constructing a canal to reach Lake Superior, this completion of the Canadian system has always been kept in view. In 1846 and again in 1852, before the canal was commenced upon the Michigan side, the Province of Canada made surveys and estimates for a canal at the Sault, and it was included in the scheme of the canal commission about twenty-five years later. At neither of these dates was there any Canadian commerce upon Lake Superior, and this is the strongest evidence that the Canadian canals looked chiefly to the northwestern states of the Union for their support. This is also confirmed by the history of the Welland canal, which was first built by a joint stock company having its principal share-holders in New York and England, as also by the fact that the canal commission of 1870 were instructed to advise "the best means to attract a large and increasing share of the trade of the northwestern portion of North America through Canadian waters, such as will enable Canada to compete successfully for the transit trade of the great western country."

SUBMERGED CANALS BELOW MONTREAL.

This historical sketch of the main canal system, Montreal to Lake Superior, would be incomplete without a reference to the great work of deepening the channel of the St. Lawrence from eleven to twenty-seven and one-half feet between Montreal and Quebec. Commenced by the Government of Canada in 1844, it was abandoned in 1847 and taken up again in 1850 by the harbor commissioners of Montreal, and carried on at the expense of the trade of the port. The original low water depth of eleven feet in 1850 was increased in 1851 to fourteen feet; in 1852 to sixteen and one-half; in 1857 to eighteen feet; in 1865 to twenty feet. Resumed in 1874 it was in 1878 increased to twenty-two feet; in 1882 to twenty-five feet and in 1888 to twenty-seven and one-half feet. The work was then taken over and its cost assumed by the Dominion Government, to the great relief of the Harbor Trust. The total cost is about four millions of dollars, of which over half a million is for dredging plant.

The total length of channel deepened is about fifty miles, of which about eighteen miles are in Lake St. Peter. There is a continuous cut of about sixteen miles in the bottom of the lake, three hundred feet wide, and ranging from fifteen to seventeen feet in depth.

SUMMARY OF THE ST. LAWRENCE ROUTE.

From Montreal to the head of the St. Lawrence canals (which is about eight miles below Ogdensburg) the distance is about one hundred and eleven miles, of which forty-three miles are canal, forth-eight miles lake and twenty miles river. Commencing at Montreal the distribution and the names of the St. Lawrence canals are as follows:

The Soulanges canal, now being substituted for the Beauharnois, will have the same lockage (with five locks instead of nine), {Four lift-locks, one guard-lock.} but nearly three miles greater length, the lake distance being decreased in this extent.

From the head of the St. Lawrence canals to the foot of the Welland canal the distance is two hundred and twenty-six miles, of which one hundred and sixty are in Lake Ontario. The Welland, as now enlarged, is twenty-six and one-half miles long, and has twenty-five locks, with a total lockage of three hundred and twenty-six and three-quarter feet, all of which is embraced in the first ten miles from Lake Ontario.

From the head of the Welland canal to the foot of the Canadian canal at Sault Ste. Marie, the distance is about six hundred miles. The length of the Sault canal upon the Canadian side is about three thousand, five hundred feet, with one lock of eighteen feet lift, but the under excavation, for deepening the approaches to nineteen feet at extreme low water, will be several times the length of the visible canal. The total length of canal and approaches is eighteen thousand, one hundred feet. From the Sault to Port Arthur is two hundred and sixty-six miles and Duluth three hundred and ninety miles. The completion of this canal at the Sault will extend Canadian inland navigation, from the ocean vessel at Montreal, over fourteen hundred miles of fresh water, with less than seventy-five miles of canal, and with about five hundred and fifty-one feet of lockage to reach Lake Superior, the surface of which is six hundred feet above tide.

The locks of the Canadian canals, with the exception of those now under construction at the Sault and the Soulanges canal, have moderate lifts, and are repetitions of the simple and economical features of the original Welland canal. The lock floors are of wood, and their upper gates the same height as their lower one - the filling and emptying being through valves in these gates.

The Soulanges canal and that at Sault Ste. Marie are new departures. The chambers are filled and emptied by culverts in the side walls or floor which, in the first, is of masonry, and the upper gates rest upon curved gates, automatic sluices at weirs, as well as swing bridges; which last are without usual central pivot piers - thus opening the full width of the channel. Portland cement concrete will generally be substituted for the masonry in the Soulanges works.

THE LATERAL CANALS.

The Chambly Canal. The Richelieu river, by which Lake Champlain discharges its waters, is, by position and navigable qualities, the most important tributary of the St. Lawrence, with the single exception of the Ottawa. Lake Champlain is over ninety feet above tide, and the summit between it and the Hudson river is only sixty feet more. This lake and the Hudson lie in the same north and south direction upon almost an air line between Montreal and New York. The navigable waters of Lake Champlain are extended northward by the Richelieu river to St. Johns, which is only twenty-five miles from the St. Lawrence at the point above Montreal where a connecting canal between the two rivers, known as the Caughnawaga canal, has long been proposed.

At St. John's the Chambly canal extends twelve miles northward (and down-stream) with nine locks, each one hundred and eighteen feet long, twenty-three feet wide, with seven feet water, and a total of seventy-four feet lockage. This canal was put under contract in 1831, but was not completed until after the Union of 1841, and has not since been enlarged. Between the foot of this canal and the mouth of the Richelieu at Sorel (a distance of forty-six miles) the river is made navigable by a dam and lock at St. Ours, thirty-two miles from Chambly and fourteen from Sorel. This lock of five and one-half feet lift was constructed, 1844-9, upon the enlarged scale of two hundred feet by forty-five in the chamber, with seven feet water. The cost of this navigation, with its ten locks and seventy-nine feet of lockage, has been about $750,000.

The Ottawa and Rideau Route. The St. Lawrence route was, by the Royal Engineers, considered to be too near the frontier for a military one. The influence of the Imperial Government was exerted in favor of an interior route between Montreal and Kingston, via the Ottawa and Rideau rivers. The Provincial Government of Upper Canada was offered, in 1824, financial assistance if it would undertake the Rideau canal (which is within the Provincial territory), but it declined upon the ground that the St. Lawrence would best serve the commercial interests of the country. The Home Government, in 1826, decided to carry out this inland communication, which had been commenced upon the Ottawa and Grenville, midway between Montreal and the Rideau, in 1819. Seven locks were constructed, one hundred and six and one-half feet by nineteen and one-half feet in the chamber, with six feet water, but the remaining ones upon the Ottawa were, in 1828, enlarged to one hundred and twenty-nine by thirty-two, with the same depth of water.

The Rideau canal was commenced in 1826 and opened in 1832, but not completed until 1834. The locks were increased in length and width over the enlarged Ottawa ones, but the depth of water was decreased. They are now one hundred and thirty-four by thirty-three, with five feet water, and have never been enlarged. The route at Ste. Anne, {Where the middle branch of the Ottawa empties into the St. Lawrence.} fifteen miles above Lachine, where the Ottawa joins the St. Lawrence, were not embraced in the scheme of the military canals. There are only three feet here, and they were navigable at high water by the early boats. There was also a lock to pass them upon the Vaudreuil or Isle Perrot side, owned by a forwarding company. As the Lachine canal locks {At this time.} are only one hundred by twenty-four by four and one-half, compared with one hundred and thirty-four by thirty-three by five for those of the Rideau, it is possible that the original intention, before the whole scheme was abandoned, was to reach the St. Lawrence below Montreal by that branch of the Ottawa which passes behind the island of Montreal, {Ottawa empties into St. Lawrence in three branches - at Cascades and at St. Anne above Montreal, and at Terrebonne below.} in which case the Ste. Anne's rapids would be avoided. {This is misleading to one unaccustomed to the locality, as the drop from Lake Two Mountains to the St. Lawrence below Montreal remains the same whether the route goes by Lachine or the Recollect northwest of the city, approximately fifty-four feet.} The Grenville locks were commenced before the (original) Lachine, which probably accounts for their greater length. The first lock at Ste. Anne was built after the Union and completed in 1843. It was one hundred and ninety by forty-five in the chamber, with six to seven feet of water. A new one two hundred by forty-five by nine feet of water has been placed alongside. These latter dimensions are those adopted for the Ottawa and Lake Champlain route.

Measured from Lachine (which is common to both) the distance to Kingston by the Ottawa and Rideau route is two hundred and eighteen miles, as compared with one hundred and seventy miles by the St. Lawrence. The number of locks is fifty-five, and the total lockage five hundred and nine feet (three hundred and forty-five feet rise and one hundred and sixty-four fall) against twenty-six locks and two hundred and six and one-half feet lockage (all rising) by the St. Lawrence. On the one hundred and eleven miles of this route between Lachine and Ottawa City, nearly seven miles are canal, and of the one hundred and twenty-six miles of the Rideau route between Ottawa and Kingston about sixteen and one-half are canal. The lesser length of canal upon the longer and higher route to Lake Ontario is due to the fact that the St. Lawrence can not be dammed. {The Rideau (not Ottawa) could be and was.}

The Military Canals, between Carillon and Grenville, were three in number, and overcame a fall in the Ottawa river of nearly sixty feet. Carillon was the lowest, Grenville the highest, and the intermediate one (since abolished) was known as the "Chute-a-Blondeau." The Carillon canal climbed twenty-one and one-half feet over a rocky bluff by two combined locks, the side walls of which were formed by the rock cutting, and then descended thirteen feet by one lock to the river, and was supplied by a feeder from the North river. In the recent enlargement a dam at Carillon raises the river nine feet, drowning out the rapids and substituting six and one-half miles of new canals and seven locks for seven miles of old canal with eleven locks. There are now only two canals - the Carillon, three-quarters of a mile long, with two locks and thirteen feet lockage, and the Grenville, five and three-quarter miles long, with five locks and forty-three and three-quarter feet lockage, separated by a navigable reach of river five and one-half miles. These two canals are now enlarged to the scale fixed for the Ottawa and Lake Champlain route, the locks two hundred by forty-five by nine feet water; but are useless for this route until the Chambly canal and that at St. Ours are enlarged and deepened - works which will doubtless be delayed until there is an enlargement of the New York State canal between Lake Champlain and the Hudson river.

The total new lockage between Lachine and the Rideau at Ottawa is sixty-two and three-quarters feet (of which three feet is at Ste. Anne), and is the minimum possible between these points.

The Rideau Canal. The total lockage on the one hundred and twenty-six miles of this route between the Ottawa river (at Ottawa) and Kingston, upon Lake Ontario, is four hundred and forty-six and one-quarter feet. From the Ottawa river it ascends two hundred and eighty-two and one-quarter feet by thirty-four locks, in a distance of eighty-seven and one-half miles to the summit level of the Rideau lakes, and then descends one hundred and sixty-four feet by thirteen locks in a distance of thirty-eight and three-quarter miles to Lake Ontario. There are twenty-four stone dams, two of which are thirty-three and sixty-eight feet high, respectively.

These military canals were handed over to Canada by the Imperial Government in 1853.

Considerable expenditure has been made upon the upper Ottawa at two points, and also upon the Back lake system near Peterboro', as well as upon the River Trent (the outlet of these lakes into the Bay of Quinte), which bay is the head of the St. Lawrence river navigation.

Trent Navigation. This Trent route, like that of the Ottawa valley, had been agitated, locally, for shortening the water route from the sea into Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior. The total lockage upon this route to Lake Huron would exceed eight hundred and fifty feet, fully five hundred feet more than on the Welland route. About three hundred and seventy feet of this lockage (more than all upon the Welland canal) would be between Rice lake and Lake Ontario, and the water route between these lakes is about six times longer than the land route. Everything, therefore, but the timber (for which canals would only be an obstruction) would shun the water route, even if improved, on account of the length and the lockage. The inland navigation of the Trent, therefore, is not likely to "come to the front" in the near future. The Ottawa river route, among other projected canals, was referred by the Government in 1870 to the canal commission, but the Trent route was then ignored, and has since been taken up as a local work. The Trent scale of navigation is that of the Rideau canal, and the work done there recently has been confined to connecting this extensive land system by locks and dams, but there are cut-stone locks built over fifty years ago, upon the Trent river, the gates of which have never been hung. The route is too shallow, crooked and elevated to compete with that of the Welland. Over one million of dollars has been expended here, nearly one-third of which was before confederation. {Confederation of all the Canadian provinces, 1867.} This isolated navigation upon the northern slope of Lake Ontario has no connection with that lake or with Lake Huron. {Work still in progress.}

Upon the Ottawa river, above Ottawa, nearly the same amount has been expended upon the same principle of connecting isolated navigable stretches not connected with any outlet east or west. But in the Ottawa case the works have been abandoned, either before completion or since. The only completed, though unused one, was so leisurely prosecuted that the railway ran past it and rendered it unnecessary. The locks that are built are of wood, two hundred by forty-five by five feet of water, and are therefore no contribution to a future ship canal from Montreal to Lake Huron.

St. Peter's Canal. This is a tide level canal about half a mile in length connecting the Bras d'Or lake, a salt water estuary in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, with St. Peter's Bay on the Atlantic. The first survey was made by one of Telford's engineers, in 1821, but work was not commenced until 1854. It was suspended in 1859, when the provincial engineer recommended a marine railway instead of the tidal lock. It was, however, resumed in 1864 and completed after confederation, with a lock one hundred and twenty-two by twenty-six with thirteen feet of water upon the sill. A new lock two hundred by forty-eight has replaced the old and the canal has been deepened to nineteen feet. The extreme rise and fall of the tide in St. Peter's Bay is nine feet - the range in the Bras d'Or lake being about one-third of that outside. The tidal lock has four pairs of gates and the whole expenditure has been $845,000.

The Shubenacadie Canal. One of the earliest canals undertaken after the opening of the Lachine, was the Shubenacadie canal in Nova Scotia, projected to connect Halifax harbor with the basin of Minas. Costly masonry was erected, the sum of $60,000 was expended, and the work neatly completed, but it proved a disastrous failure. There was an insufficiency of water for lockage, and the tides in the Shubenacadie river are the highest anywhere - said to range seventy-five feet. {Certainly over sixty-four feet.}

Two short canals without locks connect Burlington Bay at the head, and Bay of Quinte at the foot, of Lake Ontario, with that lake.

The Burlington Canal. The Burlington canal is a short cut through the sand beach at the head of Lake Ontario and gives access to the port of Hamilton, Ontario. It has cost $433,000.

The Murray Canal. The other is known as the Murray canal, projected in the last century when a land grant was set apart for it. It has only been recently opened with eleven feet of water at a cost of $2,216,000 for a length of five miles from end to end of entrance piers.

The Desjardins Canal. A private company before our railway era opened a canal from Burlington bay to Dundas at a cost of about $100,000, by which lake schooners could ascend to that town. It was between three and four miles long and was called the Desjardins canal, but is now remembered only as the scene of a frightful railway accident in 1837.

Grand River Navigation Company. Another company, by means of dams and locks (and Indian money chiefly) extended a boat navigation in connection with the Welland canal, sixty miles up the Grand river - after that river was dammed in order to use it as a feeder to the Welland - at a cost of $200,000. This also has been superseded by the railways.

The only new canal undertaken by the Dominion was for the improvement of Rainy river, an affluent of the Lake of the Woods by a lock and dam at Fort Francis. This was an attempt to utilize the natural water stretches in order to reach the Northwest at a time when the country had not as yet grown to sufficient confidence in its own resources and ability to carry out the Canadian Pacific Railway; and it was abandoned therefore as soon as that work was undertaken.