Article July 24, 1902 Issue

Great Canals of the World

Public Opinion

A PUBLICATION of the Treasury Bureau statistics gives some timely information regarding the great canals of the world, from which we take the following descriptions of the nine artificial waterways which may be properly termed ship canals.

In America, the canals connecting the Great Lakes are the principal ship canals, and are three in number: the Welland Canal, orginally constructed in 1833 and enlarged in 1871 and 1900; the Sault Ste. Marie, or St. Mary's River Canal, opened in 1855 and enlarged in 1897; and the Canadian Canal at St. Mary's River, opened in 1895. The American Canal was originally constructed by the state of Michigan, but subsequently taken charge of by the United States and enlarged at a cost of $2,150,000. The cost of the canal was thirty million dollars, largely due to the fact that twenty-five locks are required in surmounting the rise of three hundred and twenty-seven feet in the distance of twenty-seven miles.

The length of the Suez Canal is about ninety miles, the cost one hundred million dollars, the present depth thirty-one feet, width at botton one hundred and eight feet, and at the surface four hundred and twenty feet. The number of vessels passing through it has grown from 486 in 1870 to 3,441 in 1901.

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