Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/438

434 he does not wish to be understood as saying that a lock canal is not practicable.

At the same meeting, Mr. Hunter, of the Manchester Canal, gave expression to his views on the type of canal, explaining that although as a member of the Comité Technique he favored, under the circumstances then prevailing a lock canal, he could not under the altered conditions "undertake the responsibility of joining in a recommendation to the United States for the construction of a lock canal. . . ."

Advocating the adoption of a lock-canal project, on the other hand, Mr. Noble said:

Another advocate of the lock type of canal, Mr. Ripley, concurred in the remarks of Mr. Noble and gave as an additional reason for his position the belief that this type of canal would provide for a navigation the limit of which will not be reached in a number of years probably 40 to 75 years, so that the people of the United States will not soon be called upon to make additional expenditures for improving the canal; whereas for a sea-level canal it is quite probable that within a short time, possibly 15 or 25 years, a widening will be necessary which will cost many millions of dollars.

Mr. Parsons, also of the board of engineers, referred to the fact that a canal was to be built for all time, that it was a work of the greatest constructive magnitude ever undertaken. The plan of the canal should be of the broadest and largest possible type which we can conceive. A few years more or less in time is of no consequence. Neither is an additional cost of $50,000,000 or even $100,000,000 of importance, as there will be an adequate return. Accidents similar to those which have occurred on the Manchester and the "Soo" Canals have occurred also in the Welland and other canals. These accidents by great good fortunes have not been disasters. With locks of large size

With these views before him, and in the light of all the information