Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/153

CANAL. N. Y., on the Erie Canal. A summary of the essential details of the Anderton, Les Fontinettes, La Louvière, and Lockport lifts is given in the accompanying table:

The Heinrichenberg lift lock has a tank 229.6 × 28.2 × 8.2 feet, with a lift of 52.45 feet.

History.—Canals date from a period long anterior to the Christian era and were employed as means of navigation and communication by the Assyrians, Egyptians, Hindus, and Chinese. The royal canal of Babylon was built about 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 connect the Yang-tse-kiang and Pei-ho. This canal is 650 miles long; is largely composed of canalized rivers; is about 5 to 6 feet deep, and has inclined planes up which the boats are hauled by capstans and made to slide down a paved track. The lock is said to have been invented in 1481 by two Italian engineers, but the merit of this invention is also claimed by Holland. The known facts are that canal locks were used in both Holland and Italy in the Fifteenth Century, and that by their development a wonderful impetus was given to canal construction, which had previously been confined to such countries as permitted canals of a single level or reach to be used. The first European country to take up the construction of navigation canals on a systematic 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 1666-81. For the time this last was an enormous work—the canal connecting the Bay of Biscay with the Mediterranean by an artificial waterway 148 miles long and 6½ feet deep, with 119 locks having an aggregate rise of 600 feet, and capable of floating vessels of 100 tons. In Russia, a great system of canals connecting Saint Petersburg with the Caspian Sea was developed during the Eighteenth Century; a canal connecting the North Sea and Baltic 100 miles long was finished in 1785; the Gotha Canal, 280

miles long, connecting Stockholm and Gothenburg, in Sweden, was completed in 1832; and the Danube-Main Canal, 108 miles long, was constructed 1836-46. France, however, was the Continental country which devoted the greatest attention to canal construction, taking 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 uniformity in its canal system by establishing a depth of 6½ feet of water and locks 126½ 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 systems, while England and America have practically abandoned the development of their systems of navigable waterways.

The first canals in Great Britain are generally conceded to have been the Foss dyke and Caes dyke in Lincolnshire, 11 and 40 miles long respectively, the former of which is still navigable. These channels are stated to have been first excavated 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 England through the energy and liberality of the Duke of Bridgewater and the skill of the engineer, James Brindley, the success of whose works stimulated others to engage in similar undertakings. The era of canal-building, ushered in by the Duke of Bridgewater by the construction of the Bridgewater 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 mentioned as among the more notable of the British canals: Grand Canal, Dublin to Ballinasloe, Ireland, 164 miles long, 40 feet wide, 6 feet deep,