Items of Interest May 19, 1917 Issue

Items of Interest

The New York State Barge Canal, which will be opened to navigation between Buffalo and Albany this month, is one of the world's great engineering feats. It is about ten times as long as the Panama Canal and has many more engineering works; it also has some of the most notable locks in the world. It is costing the people of the state $150,000,000. This canal consists of four branches: the Erie, 339 miles in length, running across the state from Waterford on the Hudson River to Tonawanda, where the Niagara River is entered and followed to Lake Erie; the Champlain, 61 miles long, running northward along the easterly boundary of the state from Waterford to Whitehall at the southern end of Lake Champlain; the Oswego, 23 miles, branching from the Erie Canal north of Syracuse and running northward to Oswego on Lake Ontario; and the Cayuga-Seneca Canal, 23 miles, leaving the Erie west of the Oswego junction and running southward, connecting with the large lakes from which it takes its name. The system utilizes wherever practicable all the rivers and lakes, canalizing them by the building of dams, locks, and other engineering works, and attaining what is known as "slack water" navigation. Less than 30 per cent of the canal is restricted to "land line."

The canal has a minimum depth of 12 feet throughout. It is 75 feet wide, with earth sections of the "land line" 94 feet wide in rock cuts, and has a minimum width of 209 feet in the beds of canalized rivers and lakes. The five locks at Waterford, the eastern entrance to the Erie, have the distinction of being the greatest series of high lift locks in existence, having a combined lift of 169 feet, which is one foot less than the total lift of every lock in the Panama Canal.

Four animals closely related to the camel of Africa and Asia inhabit the Andean highlands. Of these, the vicugna and guanaco are wild and hold no important position as a source of wealth. The alpaca and the llama are domesticated. The llama, the pack animal in universal use, withstands the rigors of the climate, is able to subsist on the sparse nourishment available, and endures the atmospheric conditions at great altitudes far better than the horse,the mule, or the burro. The alpaca is closely related to the llama, but is smaller, rarely attaining a height of three feet. It has been found impossible to acclimate this animal outside of its regular haunts in the Andes, even under the most favorable conditions and with the best care possible. It is customary to shear the alpaca every second year. The present yield of wool averages about ten to fifteen pounds an animal every second year. In 1914, the latest year for which complete statistics are available, the production of alpaca wool in Peru and Bolivia was valued at $1,548,543, and of llama wool at $90,137.

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