ural channel more convenient for all purposes of trade." The estimate by the St. Lawrence route, for locks one hundred and thirty-two feet by forty feet, with eight feet of water, was only £176,378 (or $705,512;) while that for the Rideau, with locks only one hundred by twenty-two feet, and seven feet of water, was £230,785 (or $923,140.) The Imperial government had turned their attention to this route immediately after the war; and, early in 1815, Colonel Nicolls, commanding royal engineer, sent Lieutenant Jebb to explore the direct route by Irish Creek. In 1825, a committee of royal engineers, sent out to Canada, were instructed to bring home an estimate for the cost of a canal by this route, based upon the dimensions of the Lachine Canal, then completed. This was found to be £169,000 (or $676,000)-whereupon the Imperial government, desirous of retaining the complete control of the canal in case of another war, determined on its construction; and, in May, 1826, sent out Lieutenant-Colonel John By, R. E., who commenced it on the 21st of September, 1826, and passed the first steamer through on the 29th of May, 1832; but the works were not completed until 1834. This route is one hundred and twenty-six and one-quarter miles long, of which only sixteen and a half are canal. From Ottawa, it ascends two hundred and ninety-two feet by thirty-four locks, in a distance of eighty-seven and a half miles, to the summit level of the Rideau Lakes; and then descends one hundred and sixty-five feet by thirteen locks, in a distance of thirty-eight and three-quarters miles; giving a total of forty-seven locks with four hundred and fifty-seven feet lockage. The navigation is formed by twenty-four dams, six of which range from twenty-five to sixty feet in height. Most of these dams are of stone,—a questionable policy, as timber ones are as reliable and very much cheaper. The original canal was intended to have a towing path; but, in 1828, another committee of royal engineers, with Sir James Kempt at their head, authorized its enlargement for steam navigation, the locks to be one hundred and thirty-four by thirty-three feet; the towing-path was, therefore, unfortunately omitted. The canal drops into the Ottawa by a flight of eight combined locks, having a lift of eighty-two feet; and as it was necessary, on leaving the Ottawa, at once to rise above the level of the Chaudière Lake, the navigation would have been extended without additional lockage, nearly forty miles higher up the river, had the canal been kept in it until that lake was reached. TIMBER SLIDES ON THE OTTAWA. The Ottawa, above the point where the Imperial canal joined it, has been, with several of its large tributaries, the subject of improvement, for downward transportation only -for the purpose of bringing out timber and lumber with greater expedition, greater safety, and greater economy. These works are peculiar to Canada and deserve more than a passing notice. The heavy timber, hauled out by the aid of the snow which gives access to every tree, is deposited on the ice in the several streams and lakes, and is there left to be borne down by the spring freshets, either in single sticks or in rafts manned by men, according to the size of the stream. If not rafted, it goes off with the water, followed by the men in canoes, whose duty it is to look after the stragglers grounded on a shoal or detained in an eddy, and shove them out into the main stream. This mode of bringing out the timber, which is called "driving," is practicable upon almost all streams when in freshet; but, on many, there are a few places where the obstructions are so great as to call for artificial aid, to prevent detention of the timber until too late for that tide which, if not taken at the flood, too often leads to misfortune. In some rivers, precipitous cataracts and jagged rocks are so destructive to timber that the virgin groves have remained almost untouched, until, by means of slides and dams, it could be profitably brought down. In others, the delays in passing certain points were so great that the freshet passed off before the timber could be got into the main river, and it was left behind for the next year. The slides are artificial "chutes" formed by inclined troughs of timber and plank, open at both ends, through which a portion of the stream is diverted, and the timber thereby carried past chutes and places where it would either stick fast or be torn to splinters. For "driving," the slides are narrow, and similar to the flumes or raceways supplying a water-wheel; but when designed for the passage of rafted timber they are twenty-five feet wide; and down one of them a crib, containing fifteen hundred cubic feet or nearly forty tons of timber, will be carried, with the men aboard and the cookhouse undisturbed, and in a few moments be fifty feet below its former level. Dams are resorted to to flood back the water on shoals and rocks which retain and damage the timber; to stop up high water channels-so as to keep it from straying or to strengthen the main current; and also at the head of chutes, to govern and regulate the mouth of slides. The Ottawa and the Bay of Quinte, the latter as being the outlet of the inland waters, are the chief sources from whence Quebec is supplied with timber; to these may now be added the St. Maurice or Three Rivers. Recently, rafts have been towed through some of the great lakes, but at much risk and some loss. The first raft from the Bay of Quinte was got out by Samuel Sherwood, in 1790. It was composed of masts cut upon the north shore of the bay, three miles east of Trenton; and there being then no cattle in the country, Sherwood used tackle to haul the timber to the water. In 1806, Philemon Wright took the first raft down the Ottawa. It was obtained from the Gatineau, a large tributary entering near Ottawa City. PROPOSED OTTAWA AND LAKE HURON CANALS. In 1853, an appropriation of $200,000 was obtained, without previous survey or estimate, for the purpose of connecting the Chats and Chaudière Lakes by means of a canal with fifty feet lockage. The idea of the projectors was to commence on a magnificent scale at a point where the very uselessness of the expenditure would be an argument in favor of its extension, east and west, to Montreal and Lake Huron. They did not, therefore, court any analyzation of the scheme. The government of that day, on the other hand, obtained the support of the Ottawa constituencies for their railway policy along the St. Lawrence, and were thus induced to grant the sum required to commence operations. The simultaneous failure of the contractor and the appropriation afforded a decent pretext for suspension in 1856, which ended in abandonment: in the meantime the projectors were amused with a series of extensive surveys of the whole route, between Montreal and Lake Huron, --of over four hundred miles, and with estimates for canals for Atlantic vessels. The result of these surveys shows that the abandoned canal on which $373,191 has been expended was in the wrong place; that to have completed it on the scale proposed would have cost $1,465,439, whereas the same result can be produced in the right place for $681,932-in other words, that the opportune abandonment of the work will effect a saving of $410,316. It is gratifying to know that if the commencement has involved a loss of $373,191, the abandonment has saved a greater sum, and that there is still a handsome balance to the credit of the latter. The summit level of the proposed Ottawa route at Lake Nipis sing would be six hundred and fifty-one feet above tidewater; and the total rise and fall from tide-water to Lake Huron, by this route, is seven hundred and twenty-eight feet, the fall from Lake Nipissing to Lake Huron being seventy-seven feet. The general results of the Ottawa survey, as made by Mr. T. C. Clark, C. E., are embraced in the following table extracted from his report: The scale of navigation proposed is for vessels of one thousand tons. Locks two hundred and fifty feet long by forty-five feet wide, with twelve feet depth of water on the mitre sills. These figures are conclusive;-a canal scheme, undertaken on such a scale, and upon such a route, with all the ... 148.20 144.00 1,757,653 .... 1,162,154 2,160,369 886,117 ... .... 574,175 |