Erie Canal (N.Y.); Steam-navigation -- New York (State) -- Erie canal
Then, when the mass are altered, they will coerce the State to alter the
second tier, because it becomes worthless and inoperative, and because the
one tier becomes incapable of passing so great a multitude of boats, and it
would otherwise greatly reduce the carrying capacity of the canals.
The State is sure to complete the removal of the "benches" on the remaining
part of the "Eastern Division" as they are already removed from a part, and
from the Middle and Western Division; and then we can find no fault with
the canal. _But this will not help steam_ vs. _horses_. All improvements
help horses equally with steam, and there is the ever-pending difference of
cargo.
The same authority discusses the advantages to follow, "if the time can be
shortened from Buffalo to New York from (14) fourteen to (5) five days,"
&c. If a hundred thousand dollars reward _for expedition_, pending during
two seasons of navigation, has proved insufficient to reduce the _average_
of the three shortest trips, with 200 tons cargo, below seven days total or
actual time from Buffalo to West Troy, the five days to New York, with the
present knowledge of steam machinery, becomes an impossibility. But
newspapers have preceded the message with the false supposition and the
same error.
The extraordinary measures initiated by the N. Y. Central R. R., by their
forty million dollars issue of bonds for the construction of _a double
track exclusively for freight_, shows the growing importance of this
already immense business, and whilst automaton steamers, _under the known
mechanism of the age_, will inevitably lessen the carrying capacity of the
canal, by filling its locks--which alone control the maximum carrying
capacity--eleven times with light cargoes in place of nine times with full
freights; _the mechanical elevation_ and substitution of steam, as shown by
the CANAL NECESSITIES herein set forth, possesses still more extraordinary
importance.
Every consideration enforces the NECESSITIES, set forth in this appeal, OF
MECHANICAL IMPROVEMENT, LOCAL AUXILIARY POWER, AND CONCENTRATED MANAGEMENT.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
p. 024--typo fixed, changed 'enfore' to 'enforce'
p. 025--typo fixed, changed 'superiorites' to 'superiorities'
p. 026--typo fixed, changed 'adandoned' to 'abandoned'
p. 027--typo fixed, moved a comma after 'with' to after 'trips'
End of Project Gutenberg's History of Steam on the Erie Canal, by Anonymous
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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