Ques. 5. Did you ever meet with any accident in passing the canal bridge; if yea, state what it was and how it occurred? Ans. The chimneys broke from their fastenings and fell on to the guards, in passing the bridge, after they were lowered; in consequence of the wind driving the boat against the side of the canal, so that the chimneys which were lowered to pass under the center of the arch could not pass, but struck the arch at one side of its center and knocked the chimneys off, and broke them entirely from the hinges. This occurred in the fore part of the night. I was detained about 20 hours; when I got up one new chimney, and took another new one on board, and proceeded to Cincinnati, where I put that up also. We had a pair of new chimneys ready here at the time of the accident; otherwise we should have been detained, as much as a week, I suppose, to get new chimneys made. Ques. 6. Have you noticed the effect of the repeated heating of chimneys in their ordinary use; if yea, state whether they become weakened thereby, and are more liable to accident in raising and lowering them? Ans. I have noticed the effect of such heating. The chimneys become weakened thereby; and are rendered more liable to accident in raising and lowering them. And the repeated raising and lowering of chimneys weakens them. Ques. 7. Are you now engaged in the steamboat business? Cross-examination. Ques. 1. How old were the chimneys of the Talma at the time of the accident you have mentioned? Ans. They were in their third year. Ques. 2. How much were the chimneys lowered at the time they struck the arch of the bridge? Ans. They were lowered so as to have passed 5 or 6 feet below the center of the arch of the bridge. I was captain of the boat at that time. Ques. 3. Were you accustomed to passt hrough the canal, with the Talma, on every trip? Ans. We did not come through every trip; but generally did. Ques. 4. What was the height of the chimneys of the Talma at the time the accident happened? Ans. About 32 feet from the hurricane roof. Ques. 5. What was the height of the new chimneys you put on at that time? Ans. Either 32 or 34 feet, I think. Ques. 6. Was the Talma a fast boat? Ans. She was the fastest boat that ever went through the canal, except one, the Duke of Orleans; She never ran with all the boats. regularly as any boat in the trade. at least, she was considered so. I suppose she made her trips as She was not a fast boat, in com parison with the long boats now in the trade, such as the Alex Scott, the Peytona and the Belle Key. Ques. 7. Were the new chimneys, you put on her, rigged for lowering in the same manner as the old one had been? Ans. They were. Ques. 8. Did she ever run above Louisville? Ans. She never made but one trip above, while I was on her; and that was the trip I have before stated. It is agreed by the counsel for the respective parties that the House Document No. 50, of the 3d session of the 27th congress of the United States, containing the survey of the Ohio river and an account or statement of its shoals and bars, may be referred to by either party as evidence in this cause. The following are extracts from the letter of Capt. Hughes, of the corps of topographical engineers, dated the 30th of November, 1842, contained in that document, and addressed to Colonel Abert; and the table of the shoals and bars and ripples in the Ohio, between Pittsburgh and the falls at Louisville, accompanying that letter; which are also contained in that document. * "Before proceeding to the development of the results called for by your letter of instructions, it may be appropriate to offer a few general remarks on the character of the river and its obstructions, the nature of the proposed remedies for the correction of the evils, and the difficulties attending this species of improvement. "The Ohio river is formed by the union of the Allegany and Monongahela rivers at Pittsburgh, and derives its characteristic features and principal supplies of water from the former, of which it is in fact a prolongation; the Monongahela being of the nature of a tributary. The distance from its source to the falls, at Louisville, Ky., is about 600 miles, but has never been accurately determined. Lieutenant (now Captain) Sanders, of the corps of engineers, began a survey in 1837; but it was discontinued at Letart's fails, in 1838, in consequence of the suspension of further appropriations of money by Congress, and has not been again resumed. This is seriously to be regretted, inasinuch as we have no exact data for plans and estimates of the remaining 371 miles. The survey was conducted with great care and accuracy; the charts are drawn on a scale of 1,000 feet to one inch; the soundings are reduced to the low water of September, 1838, a year of extremely low water. 422 1000 "The distance from Pittsburgh to Letart's falls is 234 miles, and the perpendicular fall 167 feet; giving an average of 8 inches per mile. It is, however, much greater at many localities; and at Letart's rapids 3 feet in a distance of 2,800 feet; or at the rate of nearly 6 feet per mile, with a velocity of 3 miles per hour. That portion 147 of the river, however, surveyed by Captain Sanders embraces the worst obstructions and most difficult passes. "Previous to the survey by Captain Sanders, a careful reconnoissance of the river was made by Lieutenant (now Captain) Dutton, from Pittsburgh to Louisville; in the course of which he collected much useful information, which enabled him to offer many valuable suggestions in reference to the improvement of the bed of the river. "The general character of the Ohio, above the falls, is singularly uniform; and it may be popularly described as a regular succession of alternate short ripples and long pools, produced by the intervention of bars, usually found at the heads of islands or rocky ledges. The current in the pools is very gentle, and almost sluggish, in low water; over the ripples it is at all times more or less rapid, depending on the height of water, the fall, and the breadth of the chute. But it flows very nearly at a uniform velocity over pools and ripples, in time of floods, and approximates to uniformity, as the river rises, during fresh ets. "The river is of a nearly uniform breadth, gradually widening in proportion to the accession of its tributaries; but as it does not spread out into lakes, acting as reservoirs, its waters are rapidly discharged, and, when the rains cease to fall, its supplies are speedily exhausted. The removal of the bars would, of course, under such circumstances, rapidly diminish the pools immediately above them. 690 1000 "From Pittsburgh to Wheeling, a distance of 88 miles, the fall is 791% feet, being at the average rate of 10,8% inches per mile, nearly. The greatest fall is at the rate of 6 feet per mile, and the greatest surface velocity, as given by Captain Sanders, does not exceed 4 miles the hour. And he thinks the works erected by him at White's ripple and Brown's island have not accelerated the currents over those rapids more than of a mile per hour; the velocity at the former being, after the dams were completed, 34 miles per hour. Assuming this to be the case, it follows that the bars must have been considerably lowered, and the cross sections increased; for it will be seen in the sequel that, supposing the bed of a chute to remain unaltered, the accession of even double its volume of water would produce scarcely any other perceptible effect than an acceleration of velocity, very nearly in the direct proportion to the increased volume flowing through it. "The channel from Pittsburgh to Wheeling is frequently much contracted and sinuous, requiring for low-water navigation narrow and short boats. The width should be increased to a minimum of 200 feet, (when the volume of water will justify it, to which principle all improvements must be subsidiary,) and the curves straightened. "From Wheeling to Guyandot, the fall has been approximately estimated at 7 inches to the mile; and thence to Louisville, 4 inches to the mile. Below Guyandot the river exhibits a decided change; its bed is widened, and it flows with a diminished current; the pools are longer, and the fall at the rapids less. But as might have been anticipated from the increased breadth of the river surface, and the want of tributaries in protracted droughts, sufficient to supply even the loss from evaporation, the average depth for some distance down is diminished, and many difficult, gravelly, and sandy bars are formed. "The principal difficulty, encountered in the low stages of the river, consists, not in a deficiency of the quantity of water, but in its irregular distribution, and consequent want of sufficient depth for floatage. There are localities, however, such as Letart's falls, and the rapids below Greenupsburg, where, owing to the projection of ledges of rocks, forming narrow and sinuous passes, navigation is not practicable for boats drawing somewhat less water than the actual depth of the channel. "There is no part of the Ohio river where the fall is so great that steamboats, in medium stages of water, may not propel themselves over it; but in low water some very light draught boats, of inferior power, require the assistance of warps (for which they pay $5 each) in passing Letart's rapids; and they occasionally find some difficulty at a few other rapids, such as the pass at George's island, where, the whole volume of water being collected into a narrow channel, not more than 150 feet wide, it rushes through with very great velocity. It is 10 feet deep at the gorge; but the channel is difficult of access from above, owing to its narrowness, the rapidity of the current, and an awkward shoal projecting out from the Ohio shore. "Captain Dutton has classified the river bars as follows: 1st, into those formed of hard, and apparently of permanent, gravel; 2d, shifting or loose gravel; 3d, shifting sand bars. "The first abound in the upper section of the river; they are generally exposed to a strong current, and formed of rounded oblong pebbles and stones, varying from one to fifty pounds, and upwards; they become by the continued action of the water, cleared of all smaller particles, firmly imbedded, and, by their conformation, resist the action of the current; the bottom assuming the consistency of, or similarity with, a pavement of smooth stones. "The bars of the second class are composed of fine gravel, moveable by strong currents, and occur, as well as most of the sand bars, at the lower junction of the chutes formed by the islands; these change their position when, upon the fall of the waters, the main channel of the river predominates in a new direction, and the fall and current are increased by the subsidence of the lower basins. In the upper section of the river, the sand bars are always found under the lee of the islands, or at the meeting of the channels. In the lower section extensive sand bars occur, unaccompanied by islands; the most important of these are met with between Guyandot and Cincinnati. "The low water channel is frequently not coincident with the high water channel. The river, in floods, rolls on through the straightest and broadest opening, and may cross the low water channel obliquely. If, in this case, the river bed be composed of sand or fine gravel, a bar is inevitably formed at the head of the island, and the strong eddies or whirlpools, thrown off at the foot of the islands, deposit the detritus held in suspension in the low water channel. We thus have bars formed at the head and foot of islands, under certain circumstances. These shifting bars are partially removed by a change of direction of the currents on the subsidence of the torrent; and the bed of the river is gradually readjusted, by its own action, to something like its condition previous to the flood." "It is proper here to remark, in connection with the above observations, that, at different stages of the water, the currents take different directions; and boats in descending avail themselves of the force of the current as much as possible, keeping nearly the middle of the channel for the time being; and in ascending they avoid the currents, taking the eddies along the shores, when practicable, and the same result follows. It will thus be apparent that our attention to the removal of snags must not be limited to those in the low water channel, (important as that undoubtedly is,) but that all in the bed of the river should be extracted." * "As it regards the probable efficiency of the second class of improvements, viz. the construction of low dams or jettees, generally nearly parallel, or but little oblique, to the thread of the stream, intended to throw the greater portion of the water of the river, during its low stages, into one narrow channel; it would seem to a person unacquainted with the subject, as an almost self evident proposition, that the contraction of the channel should produce an increased depth of water in the inverse ratio of the width of the stream. But such has been ascertained not to be the fact; for, (the absolute quantity of water remaining the same,) as the width of the river is contracted, the velocity of the current is increased, and the water, of course, is the more rapidly discharged. It is well known, to every one familiar with the Ohio, that, in ordinary freshets, the river rises but one foot on the bars to two or three feet in the pools-a phenomenon attributable to the same cause, to the greater velocity over the bars. As this is a subject, in connection with which much popular error exists, it may not be inappropriate to discuss the question somewhat more at length than properly comports with the object of this report; and, as I have had occasion once before to investigate this problem, in reference to the Potomac river, I shall avail myself of the results then obtained, as applicable to the present case. "In 1760, a proposition was made to unite the rivers of the Bolognese and Romagna in one common trunk, which elicited many discussions and experiments, to ascertain the effect of the junction of so many considerable streams on the height of water in the common channel, it being contended, on the one side, that the embankments would be overflown by the augmentation of such a large volume of fluid; on the other side, it was asserted that the height would not be materially increased; which last was the result of the numerous experiments instituted on this interesting subject. This result has since been fully confirmed by the most eminent French engineers, who, |