Identifier: diversionofwat00unit (find matches)
Title: Diversion of water from the Great lakes and Niagara river
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: United States. Army. Corps of engineers. (from old catalog) Warren, James Goold, 1858-1937. (from old catalog) United States. Board of engineers for rivers and harbors. (from old catalog)
Subjects: Water diversion Niagara River (N.Y. and Ont.)
Publisher: Washington, Govt. print. off.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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connected localities only, and the canalstill remains for the most part as left at the end of the first en-la rgement, except in so far as it has been destroyed in constructingthe new barge canal. Ultimately practically all the locks of the oldcanal were doubled to care for the enormous amount of traffic, andto provide lockage when one lock was out of commission. Practi-cally all canal boats were towed by mules or horses on a towpathalong one side of the canal. Tolls were charged on the old canals. The old Erie Canal pro-vided the first practicable commercial route between the Great Lakesregion and the United States seaboard. It made the growth of thewestern part of the State practicable, and was a great aid in open-ing up such western States as Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Wis-consin. Even to-day over 75 per cent of New York States popula-tion is to be found within 5 miles of the barge canal and the HudsonRiver. The early traffic on the canal was enormous for the times, 27880—21 9
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130 DIVERSION OF WATER FROM GREAT LAKES AND NIAGARA RIVER, and the tolls collected brought a wonderful revenue to the State.For many years there was no competition to this route, and littleby little as stretches of railway began to parallel the canal legisla-tive measures provided against competition. The canals were sovery popular and so lucrative to the State that their finances werenot at all times properly handled, and many lateral lines were con-structed which proved unprofitable and had to be abandoned. Rail-road competition finally crept in, and periods of financial depres-sion were experienced, resulting ultimately in a very large abandon-ment of the use of the canals. The number of tons of cargo carriedon the State canals in 1853 was 4,247,853. In 1872 the maximumtonnage was transported, namely, 6,673,370 tons. The tonnage car-ried in 1885 was 4,731,784; in 1905 it was 3,226,896. The tolls atfirst collected ranged from 5 mills per ton per mile for salt, gypsum,brick, sand, li

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