Читать книгу Highways and Highway Transportation - George R. Chatburn - Страница 56

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—Reports show the tonnage of the Erie Canal to have continually decreased from 2,031,735 tons in 1911 to 667,374 tons in 1918. The total tonnage of all the New York state canals shows a like decrease from 3,097,068 tons in 1911 to 1,159,270 tons in 1918. Notwithstanding such records there are those who firmly believe canal transportation will again take an upward trend with better terminal facilities and possibly electric propulsion. There is one class of canals that seems to have held its own, that is ship canals. The great canal and locks at Sault Ste. Marie transfer a vast lake traffic annually from one level to another between Lakes Superior and Huron. Vast quantities of iron-ore are brought in mammoth vessels by this route from docks near the Mesaba mines for the great iron mills at Gary, at Cleveland, at Pittsburgh, and other points. Similar vessels loaded with wheat, oats, and flax from the Northwest grain fields are unloaded at Buffalo for transportation to the seaboard. Agitation has been going on for some time to enlarge the Welland Canal and its locks between Lakes Erie and Ontario, thus giving seagoing vessels the opportunity of coming up by way of the St. Lawrence River and traversing the entire Great Lake system. The ambition of cities is here again manifest; Chicago would like such transportation, but it would not be beneficial to New York.

A ship canal across Cape Cod saves 70 miles and considerable time and makes the trip much less dangerous from New York to Boston. Ship canals within the islands along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts have been proposed to make safe coast commerce. There is also talk of a ship canal from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers; and still another from Lake Erie to Pittsburgh.