Items of Interest August 26, 1916 Issue

Items of Interest

The new Erie barge canal, 446 miles long-one of the world's greatest feats of engineering—will be entirely completed and in operation by 1918, according to the state engineer and surveyor. Of the 446 miles traversing New York state 400 miles are completed, and most of the canal will be in operation during the present year. The canal is ten times as long as the Panama canal, has more engineering works, and includes some of the most notable locks in the world. The total cost of this latest enlargement, borne entirely by the state of New York, will be about one hundred and fifty million dollars. The canal extends from the Hudson River near Albany and Troy to Buffalo on Lake Erie, a distance of 339 miles. Its branches are the Champlain, 61 miles long, extending from Waterford on the Hudson north to Lake Champlain ; Oswego canal, 23 miles long, branching from the Erie canal near Syracuse north to Oswego on Lake Ontario; and the Cayuga-Seneca canal, 23 miles long, a branch, from the Erie south to connect Lake Cayuga and Seneca. The old canal, opened in 1825 by Gov. DeWitt Clinton, was 4 feet deep and 42 feet wide; the new barge canal has a minimum depth of 12 feet, will be 125 feet wide in earth sections, 94 feet wide in rock cuts, and 200 feet wide in rivers and lakes through which it runs. The tow-paths in use for ninety years on the old canal will be dispensed with on the new one, making necessary either electricity or steam in propelling the barges. There are fifty-seven locks built of concrete and operated by electricity. They are 328 feet long and 45 feet wide, and will lift from one level to another at one time six boats, such as are in use on the canal.

The Bavarian Canal League recently met at Kelheim for its second annual meeting since the outbreak of war to discuss the canal schemes which have rapidly developed during the war from practically a Bavarian to an imperial enterprise. The ideal scheme proposes three main systems: first, the central canal connecting up all the navigable waterways which flow into the North Sea and the Baltic between the Rhine and the Vistula; secondly, the establishment of a navigable connection between the Rhine, the Danube, and the Black Sea by way of the Danube-Ober canal; and thirdly, the extension of that connection by means of the canalization of the Main and the construction of a new Ludwig canal. With these waterways forming the main arteries from west to east and from north to southeast, a very extensive subsidiary canal system has been planned.

The new Kansas oil field promises to be the heaviest oil producing section of the entire country. The field known now is 40 miles long and 16 miles wide. Geologists have pointed out that the prospects of a much larger territory are so good that nearly seven million acres are under gas and oil leases. There are five distinct oil sands and two strata of gas sands already discovered in the field around Augusta and El Dorado. The first sand has been found at 675 feet, producing a fair quality of crude and with an initial flow of 16 to 30 barrels of oil a day. One thousand feet below this is the next oil sand, and there are four distinct strata of oil sand from 1685 feet to 3364, the deepest well now in the field. Between 1200 and 1500 feet there are two distinct strata of gas sand, and the wells produce from 3,000,000 to 28,000,000 cubic feet a day. There is no gas in the oil sands.

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