Chapter II: Part 2

A siphon, in the ordinary sense, is a bent tube, one section of which is longer than the other, through which a liquid flows by its own weight over an elevation to a lower level. But siphon here is an engineering term to describe a channel that goes under an obstruction--the canal--and returns the water to its former level.

Like the famous rivers that drop into the earth and appear again miles further on, the Florida drainage canal approaches to within a hundred or so feet of the Industrial Canal, then dives forty feet underground, passes beneath the shipway, and comes to the surface on the other side, in front of the pumping station, which lifts it into Bayou Bienvenu.

At first it was planned to build a comparatively small siphon, but while the plans were being drawn, New Orleans entered upon its tremendous development. The engineers threw away their blueprints and began over again. They designed one that is capable of handling the entire drainage of the city. And in April, 1920, it was finished--a work of steel and concrete and machinery, costing nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, and with a capacity of 2,000 cubic feet of water a second, 7,200,000 an hour, 172,800,000 a day.

It was a work that presented many difficulties. First the Florida Walk canal had to be closed by two cofferdams. The space between was pumped out, the excavation was made, and the driving of foundation piling begun. Quicksands gave much trouble. They flowed into the cut, until they were stopped with sheet piling. The piles were from 30 to 60 feet in length and from three to five feet apart on centers.

Forty-six feet below the ground surface (-26 Cairo datum) was laid the concrete floor of the siphon.

The siphon is divided into four compartments. There are two storm chambers, measuring 10 by 13 feet each, one normal weather chamber measuring 4 by 10 feet, and one public utilities duct, measuring 6 by 10 feet. These are inside dimensions. The floor of the siphon is two feet thick; the roof, one foot nine inches. The whole structure is a solid piece of concrete and capable of standing a pressure of more than 2,000 pounds to the square foot. Its total length is 378 feet; the shipway passing over it is 105 feet wide and 30 feet deep.

In the public utilities duct are carried the city's water pipes, cables, telephone and telegraph wires, and gas mains.

The storm chambers will handle the rainfall of cloudbursts. In ordinary weather the water will be concentrated through the smaller chamber, in order to produce a strong flow and reduce the settlement of sediment to a minimum.

Eight sluice gates, each 6 by 10 feet, open or close the water chambers. They are operated by hydraulic cylinders of the most approved type.

For sending workmen inside the siphon to make repairs or clearing away an obstruction there are eight manholes. Four measure 6 by 13 feet, two 6 by 6 feet, and two 6 by 4 feet.

As soon as the Florida Walk canal can be deepened and a few link-ups in the drainage system can be made, the entire drainage of New Orleans, in normal weather and during light storms, will, according to announcement by the Sewerage and Water Board, be sent through this outlet. During the occasional cloudbursts it will be necessary to send some of the drainage into the lake, but this will be rapidly flowing water and will sweep offshore. It means a great deal to the suburban development of the city.

A year and a half the siphon was in the making. Preparations for the structure cost more than $250,000--excavation foundation, etc. The concrete alone cost $170,000. Machinery and the work of housing and installing it cost $60,000 more.

Four bascule steel bridges now cross the Industrial Canal. They are the largest in the city. Three of them--at Florida Walk, for the Southern and Public Belt Railways; Gentilly, for the Louisville & Nashville; and on the lake front, for the Southern, weigh 1,600,000 pounds each--superstructure only. The fourth--at the lock--weighs 1,000,000 pounds. They are balanced by 800-ton concrete blocks and concrete adjustment blocks. Their extreme length is 160 feet; the moving leaf has a span of 117 feet.

With a 30-foot right of way for railroad tracks, 11 feet for vehicles and trolley cars and four feet for pedestrians, they are designed to meet traffic conditions of a great and growing city. They will support 50-ton street cars or 15-ton road rollers--New Orleans has nothing as heavy as that now--and trains a great deal heavier than are now coming to the city. No bridge in the South will support as heavy loads.

The tensile strength of the steel of which the bridges are constructed is from 55,000 to 85,000 pounds to the square inch, and they will bear a wind load of 20 pounds to the square inch of exposed surface.

They are operated by two 75-horse power electric motors, 440 volts, 60-cycle, 3-phase current, which is stepped down from 2,200 volts by means of transformers. In addition, there is a 36-horse power gasoline engine, to be used if the electrical equipment is out of order. To open or close the bridges will require a minute and a half.

THE REMARKABLE LOCK.

Not only is the lock of the Industrial Canal one of the largest in the United States, but its construction solved a soil problem that was thought impossible. That of the Panama Canal is simple in comparison. The design is unique in many respects. The lock is a monument to the power of Man over the forces of Nature, and to the progress of a community that will not say die.

Because of the great variation in the level of the river at low and high water--a matter of twenty feet--it was necessary to make the excavation, for building the lock, about fifty feet deep. In solid soil this would be a simple matter. But this ground has been made by the gradual deposit of Mississippi River silt upon what was originally the sandy bed of the ocean, and through these deposits run strata of water-bearing sand, or quicksand. This flows into a cut and causes the banks to cave and slide into the excavation. Underneath there is a pressure of marsh gas, which, with the pressure of the collapsing banks, squeezes the deeper layers of quicksand upwards, creating boils and blowing up the bottom.

New Orleans has had plenty of experiences with these flowing sands in its shallow sewerage excavations. How, then, expect to make an excavation fifty feet deep? asked the doubting Thomases. It couldn't be done. The quicksands would flow in too fast. The dredges would drain the surrounding subsoil, but that wouldn't get beyond a certain depth. Furthermore, what assurance was there that the soil that far down would supply sufficient friction to hold the piles necessary to sustain the enormous weight of the lock and the ships passing through it?

Undaunted by these croakings, the engineers, from test borings, calculated the sliding and flowing character of the soil, and estimated the various pressures that would have to be counteracted, balanced this with the holding power of pine and steel and concrete, evolved a plan, and began an excavation of a hole 350 feet wide by 1,500 feet long, gradually sloping the cut (1 to 4 ratio) to a center where the lock, 1,020 by 150 feet, outside dimensions, was to be built.

The gentle slope of the cut was to prevent slides.

It had been ascertained that the first stratum of quicksand began twenty-eight feet below the ground surface (-3 Cairo datum) and was three feet thick; the second stratum, forty-eight feet below the surface (-23 Cairo datum) and ten feet thick. Coarser sand extended eleven feet below this, from -33 Cairo datum. The second stratum of flowing sand began just below where the lock floor had to be laid. The third layer was 80 feet below the surface (-55 Cairo datum); the tips of the piling would just miss it.

Excavation began in November, 1918. While the dredges were at work a wooden sheet piling cofferdam was driven completely around the lock, and about 125 feet from the edge of the bank, to cut off the first quicksand stratum. About 150 feet further in, when the excavation was well advanced, a second ring of sheet piling was driven, to cut off the second stratum, which carried a static pressure of 55 feet and was just a foot or so below where the floor of the lock would be. It was not thought necessary to cut off the third stratum.

The excavation was made in the wet. When it was finished the dredges moved back into the Canal, the entrance closed, and the work of unwatering the lock site began. This was in April, 1919.

There had never been such a deep cut made in this section. Consequently, the character of the soil, while it could be estimated, could not be known absolutely. And the exact pressure of the gas could not be known.

The sands proved to be more liquid and the gas pressure stronger than anticipated. Quicksands ran through the sheet piling as through a sieve. The walls of the excavation began to slough and cave. The gas pressure became alarming when the weight of earth and water was taken off; sand boils began to develop at the bottom; the floor of the cut was blowing up.

The fate of the Industrial Canal hung in the scale.

To meet the situation the engineers pumped a great volume of water into the excavation. Its weight counterbalanced the earth pressure of the side and the gas pressure of the bottom.

Then another ring of sheet piling was driven inside the other two. This one was of steel, and the walls were braced apart by wooden beams ten inches square and fifteen feet apart in both directions. This is one of the largest cofferdams of steel ever driven. As an added precaution against the danger of a blowout by the third stratum of quicksand, which had a static head of 75 feet, 130 ten-inch artesian wells were driven inside the steel cofferdam. Fifty-six similar wells were driven between the steel and the wooden cofferdams to dry out the second stratum of quicksand, as much as possible, and lessen its flowing character.

In November, 1919, the work of unwatering the lock site again began. Only one foot every other day was taken off. Engineers watched every timber. It was not until January 4, 1920, that the unwatering was complete. The plan had worked. Only in one place had there been any movement--a section of the wooden sheet piling about 300 feet long bulged forward a maximum distance of three inches, when the bracing caught and stopped it.

Then began the work of driving the 24,000 piles on which the lock was to be floated. They are 60 feet long and their tips are 100 feet below the surface of the ground.

In March, 1920, the work of laying the concrete began. The work was done in 15-foot sections, for only a few of the braces could be moved at one time. When it was finished in April, 1921, the lock was in one piece, a solid mass of steel and stone, 1,020 feet long, 150 feet wide, and 68 feet high, weighing, with its gates and machinery, 225,000 tons, and filled with water, 350,000 tons.

The concrete floor of the lock is 9 to 12 feet thick, the walls 13 feet wide at the bottom, decreasing to a two foot width at the top. Six thousand tons of reinforcing steel were used in the construction, and 125,000 barrels of cement. There are 90,000 cubic yards of concrete in the structure. Two and a half million feet of lumber were used in building the forms.

Usable dimensions of the lock are 640 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 30 feet (at minimum low water of the river) deep.

The top of the lock is 20 feet above the natural ground surface and 6 feet above the highest stage of the Mississippi River on record. To the top the ground will be sloped on a 150-foot series of terraces. This will brace the walls against the pressure of water within the monolith. It will be developed to a beautiful park. Heavy anchor-columns of concrete will hold the walls against the pressure of these artificial hills when the lock is empty.

Traffic crosses the canal here by a steel bascule bridge 65 feet wide, with two railroad and two street car tracks, two vehicle roadways, and two ways for pedestrians. Concrete viaducts lead to the bridge.

Gas and water mains, sewer pipes and telephone, telegraph and electric wires pass under the lock in conduits cast in the living concrete.

Water is admitted into and drained from the lock by culverts cast in the base. These are 8 by 10 feet, narrowing at the opening to 8 by 8 feet, and closed by 8 sluice gates, each operated by a 52-horsepower electric motor. It will be possible to fill or empty the lock in ten minutes.

There are five sets of gates to the lock. They are built of steel plates and rolled shapes, four and a half feet thick and weighing 200 tons each. And there is an emergency dam weighing 720 tons, which in case of necessity can be used as a gate.

Four pairs of the gates are of 55-foot size; one of 42-foot. Each gate is operated by a 52-horsepower electric motor. When open, the gates fit flush into the walls of the locks.

In the emergency dam is the refinement of precaution--designed as it was to save the city from overflow in the remote event of the lock gates failing to work during high water, and to insure the uninterrupted operation of the lock in normal times, if the gates should be sprung by a ship, or otherwise put out of commission.

This dam consists of eight girders or sections, 80 feet long, 3 feet wide and 6 feet high. They weigh 90 tons each. They are kept on a platform near the river end of the lock. Nearby is the crane with a 300-horsepower motor, that picks up these girders and drops them into the slots in the walls of the lock. To set this emergency dam is the work of an hour.

A ship passing through the lock will not proceed under her own power. There are six capstans, two at each end of the lock and two at the middle, each operated by a 52-horsepower electric motor, and capable of developing a pull of 35,000 pounds, which will work the vessels through.

The lock complete, counting the bridge and approaches, cost $7,500,000. One and a half million of this is for machinery, and $56,000 for the approaches.

Henry Goldmark, the New York engineer who designed the gates of the Panama Canal and the New Orleans Industrial Canal, in a letter of March 24, 1921, to the engineering department of the Dock Board, comments as follows on the remarkable lock:

"I was much impressed by the uniformly high grade of construction of the lock, the systematic and energetic way in which the work was being carried on, and especially by the admirable spirit of team work, shown by the employees of the Dock Board, of different grades, as well as the contractors, superintendents and foremen.

"The desire to get the best possible results in all the details, at the least cost, was manifest throughout.

"The unique method used for carrying on the very difficult and risky work of excavation has attracted much professional attention in all parts of the country. Its successful completion is very creditable to all concerned, in the inception and carrying out of the method used.

"The concrete work gives the impression of lightness, as well as strength, as though every yard of concrete was doing its special share of the work without overstraining, which is, of course, the characteristic of well-designed reinforced masonry.

"The outer surfaces are particularly smooth and well finished, more so than in any work I have recently seen.

"The erection of the gates, valves, operating machinery and the protective dam, has kept up closely with the concrete work, so that no delays need be apprehended at the close of the construction period.

"The shop and field work in the lock gates is excellent. The rivet holes match well and the rivet heads appear to be tight and well formed. The gate leaves seem very straight and true."

The lock was designed by George M. Wells of the George W. Goethals Company, assisted by R. O. Comer, designing engineer of the Dock Board, and approved by General Goethals. The methods employed to unwater the lock were devised by Mr. Wells. J. Devereux O'Reilly, chief engineer of the Dock Board, to November, 1919, had charge of the details of installing the unwatering and safety devices. He was succeeded by General Arsene Perrilliat, who supervised the final unwatering process. Upon his death in October, 1920, he was succeeded by J. F. Coleman & Company, in charge of the engineering department, and H. M. Gallagher, chief engineer, under whom work is being brought to a conclusion.

From first to last, Tiley S. McChesney, assistant secretary and treasurer of the Dock Board, rendered intelligent and invaluable service, gathering together and holding the threads of the enterprise, and attending promptly to the multitude of details connected with the prosecution of the work.

The lock was formally dedicated May 2, 1921--a ceremony that was the feature of the Mississippi Valley Association's convention in New Orleans.

With the dredging of the channel between the river and the lock, a work that should be finished before January, 1922, ships will be able to pass from the Mississippi into Lake Pontchartrain. Then New Orleans can plan its next great development.

NEW CHANNEL TO THE GULF.

George M. Wells, George R. Goethals, son of the General, Colonel E. J. Dent, U.S. district engineer at New Orleans, and other engineers who have studied the problem, say that the dredging of a channel from the Industrial Canal to the gulf through Lake Pontchartrain, or the marshes, is feasible, comparatively cheap, and maintenance would be simple. This would shorten the distance from New Orleans to the sea by about 50 miles, and would be a vast saving for ships. It is one of the objects towards which the Hudson Dock Board is working.

It is Uncle Sam's recognized duty to develop and maintain harbors and channels to the sea. Distance is obviously an important factor; furthermore, the proposed new outlet would be an important link in the Intracoastal Canal, connecting with the Warrior River section of Alabama, which the government is developing between the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. A bill was introduced in the Senate in 1920 by Senator Ransdell of Louisiana, providing for the development of the proposed channel; it was not pressed because the canal was far from completed. However, every effort will be made by the Dock Board from now on to have Uncle Sam take hold.

Colonel Dent has for a number of months been studying the feasible routes. He, by the way, is thoroughly convinced of the value of the Industrial Canal to the development of New Orleans, and the commerce of the nation, and has so expressed himself in public.

The Pontchartrain route has been laid off, by engineers, beginning at the Canal, paralleling the south shore of the Lake Pontchartrain to the south draw of the Southern Railway bridge, thence to the Rigolets to Cat Island Pass, from there to Cat Island Channel and so to the deep water of the Gulf, a total distance of 75 miles.

Soundings and surface probings have been taken at frequent intervals over the entire route. These have shown the engineers the following:

Three-quarters of a mile from the south shore of the lake, and as far as the railroad drawbridge, a hard bottom is found. The material is principally packed sand, rather fine, with a small amount of clay, and occasionally some broken shells. Beyond this distance from the shore, the bottom is softer, consisting of mud mixed with sand. From the bridge over the remainder of the route, the bottom, with the exception of a few sand pockets, is soft--a blue mud with a large percentage of sand. This soft material has so much tenacity, however, that current and wave wash, which tend to fill up artificially dredged channels, would affect only the surface.

The government is conducting large dredging operations in Mobile Bay, Gulfport Channel, Atchafalaya Bay and the Houston Ship Channel. An outline of the results there will show how feasible the dredging of the Pontchartrain Channel would be, and how much cheaper in comparison.

The channel connecting Mobile Bay with the Gulf of Mexico has a bottom very soft for the most part, and with a small percentage of sand. Towards the outer end, the material is black mud, about equal in consistency to the softest material found in the Pontchartrain route. A sounding pole with a 4-inch disc on the end can be easily pushed three or four feet into the mud and pulled out again. Wave and current action cause the channel to shoal at the rate of 78,000 to 132,000 cubic yards per mile per year, depending on the softness of the bottom and the depth. Where the highest rate obtains, the surrounding material consists of soft mud, without a trace of sand. Experience shows that where there is a fair percentage of sand in the material adjacent to the channel bed, the shoaling is lessened. In general, the material along the Pontchartrain route contains a greater percentage of sand and is far more tenacious than that along the Mobile Bay Channel. Furthermore, the Pontchartrain route is not exposed to such strong cross currents.

The Gulfport Channel is dredged through very soft material, a grayish-blue mud of oozy consistency, into which the sounding pole penetrates six feet with very little exertion. On top, a small amount of sand is found, but practically none in the lower stratum. The material is considerably softer than any encountered on the Pontchartrain route, except for one small stretch. Yet the shoaling is not great. Where the shoaling is heaviest, between the end of the pier and Beacon 10, only about 700,000 cubic yards a mile has to be dredged out every year to maintain the channel. From Beacon 10 out, the average annual maintenance is less than 200,000 cubic yards a mile. Except for the four-mile stretch west of the inner entrance to the Cat Island Channel, the bottom, on the Pontchartrain route, is harder than that of the Gulfport Channel. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that the maintenance of the Pontchartrain Channel would not average as high as the outer portion of the Gulfport Channel.

The Atchafalaya Bay Ship Channel, extending from the mouth of the Atchafalaya River across the shoal waters of Atchafalaya Bay, to about the 20-foot contour of the Gulf, a distance of fifteen miles, is through a material of slushy mud, with occasional thin pockets of sand. The shoaling runs from 540,000 to 1,680,000 cubic yards a mile a year. The highest rate is obtained in shallow water. Except in the stretch mentioned, the material on the Pontchartrain route is not as soft as on the Atchafalaya, nor are the depths as shoal, nor is there the exposure to cross currents.

In the Houston Ship Channel, the material is composed of soft mud with a small amount of sand. A two-mile stretch through Red Fish Reef is practically self-maintaining. For the remainder of the channel, during the six years from 1915 to 1920, a total excavation of 13,574,000 cubic yards was necessary to maintain the depth. This is equivalent to 100,000 cubic yards a mile a year.

In summary, then:

1. The Lake Pontchartrain route is practically unexposed to cross currents, as is the case with the Mobile Bay, Gulfport, Atchafalaya, and, to a certain extent, the outer portion of the Houston Ship Channels.

2. The material along and on the sides of the Pontchartrain route is, with the exception of a small stretch, more tenacious, and contains, in general, a greater proportion of sand than in the case of the neighboring channels mentioned.

The channel could therefore be more easily maintained.

Engineers estimate that a channel with a 300-foot bottom would be needed. On the south shore of the lake, the side slopes should be on the 1 to 3 ratio, with provision for a 1 to 5 ratio at the end of five years. Dumped on shore, the material would reclaim considerable frontage, and eliminate the re-deposit of this material in the channel.

Through the remainder of the route, the original excavation should be made with side slopes on the 1 to 5 ratio, with provision made for a 1 to 10 ratio in five years.

The dredging of the 75 miles of the Pontchartrain Channel would amount to 97,200,000 cubic yards, it is estimated by engineers. The cost would be around $10,000,000. The annual maintenance, during the first five years, would amount to 8,880,000 cubic yards--an estimate based on a comparison with the other channels into the Gulf, and the character of the material to be excavated. This estimate is considered large--but even at that, it is only 118,400 cubic yards a mile a year, and the cost would be about $750,000, according to Colonel Dent. After five years, it would be less.

Another proposed route, investigated by Colonel Dent, is through Lake Borgne. A canal some miles in length, through the marsh, would connect the lake with the Industrial Canal. This route has considerable maintenance advantages over the Pontchartrain route. The character of the bottom in Borgne is more or less the same as in Pontchartrain.

Sooner or later, one of these channels will be built by the government. That it has not already been begun is due to the fact that the Canal has not yet been completed, and the expected development has not taken place. But there is no doubt that it will.

WHY GOVERNMENT SHOULD OPERATE CANAL.

It is the function of the state to provide port facilities in the form of docks, piers, warehouses, grain elevators, mechanical equipment, etc. But it is the duty of the national government to improve harbors, dredge streams, dig canals for navigation and irrigation, erect levees to protect the back country, and build locks and dams when needed.

These are the premises from which the Hudson Dock Board reasons that the cost of construction and maintenance of the New Orleans Navigation Canal and Inner Harbor should be assumed by Uncle Sam. It will leave no stone unturned to have him assume the obligation.

The Navigation Canal is essentially a harbor improvement. It enables practically unlimited industrial development and commercial interchange. It is an important link in the Intracoastal Canal system which the government is developing to provide an inland waterway from Boston, Mass. to Brownsville, Tex., and, with the dredging of a channel through Lake Pontchartrain to the Gulf, a problem which U.S. engineers have been studying for some time and an undertaking which they have found feasible, it will put the nation's second port about fifty miles closer to the sea. It has considerable military value. Its purpose is, therefore, national; the local interests are secondary.

It is no new principle, this obligation of the government. That duty has been recognized by Congress since the United States was.

Any rivers and harbors bill will show great and useful expenditure for waterways improvement.

The Panama Canal, built by the government, is the greatest example.

Coming closer home, there is south pass at the mouth of the Mississippi. A bar, with a nine-foot depth of water, blocked the commerce of New Orleans. Under the rivers and harbors act of 1875, Captain James B. Eads was paid $8,000,000 for building the famous jetties to provide a 26-foot channel. Since then, the channel has been deepened to 33 feet.

In more recent years, the government began to improve southwest pass, the westernmost mouth of the Mississippi. A nine-foot bar was there, too. To increase the depth to 35 feet, the government spent, up to 1919, about $15,000,000, and is still spending.

"Just as the purpose of the improvements of these channels was to bridge the distance from deep water to deep water" says Arthur McGuirk, special counsel of the Dock Board, in a report of February 23, 1921, to the Board, "so is the purpose of the Navigation Canal to bridge the distance from the deep water of the river to the proposed deep water channel of the lake."

In the annual report of the chief of engineers, U.S.A., for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1919, are listed the following waterways improvements and canal developments being made by the Government:

"Operating and care of canals, $3,596,566.20.

"Cape Cod canal, purchase authorized, river and harbors act, August 8, 1917, cost not exceeding $10,000,000, and enlargement $5,000,000.

"Jamaica Bay channel, 500 feet width, 10 feet depth, to be further increased to 1,500 feet width entrance channel and 1,000 feet interior channel, maximum depth of 30 feet, length of channel 12 miles. Approved estimate of cost to United States not to exceed $7,430,000. River and harbors act of June 25, 1910. House document No. 1488, 60th Congress.

"Ambrose channel, New York harbor, appropriation new work and maintenance, $4,924,530.88, year ending June 30, 1919.

"Bay Ridge and Red Hook channels, $4,471,100.

"Locks and dams on Coosa River, Alabama-Georgia, $1,700,918.21.

"Channel connecting Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound, act of June 13, 1902, original project, for construction and maintenance total cost $7,809,812.42.

"Black Warrior river, 17 locks, Mobile to Sanders' Ferry, 443 miles. Total to date, $10,101,295.54. Indefinite appropriation.

"Sabine Pass, act of June 19, 1906 and prior, channels, turning basins and jetties, March 2, 1907, and previously, total appropriations, $1,875,506.78.

"Trinity River, Galveston, north, 37 miles locks and dams. Act of June 13, 1902, house document 409, 56th congress. Estimate cost complete canalization of river, revised 1916, in addition to amounts expended prior to rivers and harbors act of July, 1916, in round numbers $13,500,000. Estimated annual cost of maintenance, $280,000.

"Houston to Galveston ship canal, act of July 25, 1912, and July 27, 1916. Cost, $3,850,000. Annual maintenance, $325,000.

"Rock Island Rapids (Ill.) and LeClaire canal, rock excavations, etc., act of March 2, 1907, dams, 3 locks, etc., to June 30, $31,180,085.62 and $130,158.03 for 1 year maintenance.

"Keokuk, Iowa (formerly Des Moines Rapids canal), old project (act of June 23, 1866), $4,574,950.00.

"Muscle Shoals Canal (Tennessee River), 36.6 miles, depth 5 feet, $4,743,484.50. Exclusive of cost of nitrate plant.

"Locks and dams on Ohio River, act of March 3, 1879, to act of March 2, 1907, including purchase of Louisville and Portland canal, $17,657,273.78.

"Estimated cost of new work, widening Louisville and Portland canal and changes in dams, $63,731,488. Annual maintenance covering only lock forces and cost of repairs and renewals, $810,000. Act of June 25, 1920, house document 492, 65th congress, first session. Also act of March 4, 1915, house document 1695, 64th congress, second session.

"Ship channel connecting waters of great lakes, including St. Mary's river (Sault Sainte Marie locks), St. Clair and Detroit rivers, locks and dams, total appropriations to June 30, 1919, $26,020,369.68. Estimate new work, $24,085.

"St. Clair river, connecting Lakes St. Clair and Erie, shoalest part was 12-1/2 to 15 feet. Improved at expense of $13,252,254.00. Estimated cost of completion, $2,720,000.

"Niagara river, $15,785,713.07.

"Los Angeles and Long Beach harbor, $4,492,809.80.

"Seattle, Lake Washington ship canal, in city of Seattle, from Puget Sound to lake; original project, act of August 18, 1894. Double lock and fixed dam. Length about 8 miles. Total appropriation to date, $3,345,500.00."

These are only some of the larger projects. Of course there are a great number of such works, all over the country, constructed and maintained by the United States, sometimes alone, and again by co-operation with local authorities.

New Orleans was founded because of the strategic value of the location, both from a commercial and a military standpoint. The power that holds New Orleans commands the Mississippi Valley--a fact which the British recognized in 1812 when they tried to capture it. Likewise, when Farragut captured New Orleans, he broke the backbone of the Confederacy.

Mr. McGuirk, in the report to which reference has already been made, discusses the military importance of the Industrial Canal as follows:

"A ship canal, connecting the river and the lake at New Orleans will be a Panama or a Kiel canal, in miniature, and double in effectiveness the naval forces defending the valley, as they may be moved to and fro in the canal from the river to the lake. On this line of defense heavy artillery on mobile mounts can be utilized, in addition to heavy ships of the line. That is to say, just as light-draft monitors, and even floats carrying high-powered rifles were used effectively on the Belgian coast; on the Piave river in Italy, and on the Tigris in Mesopotamia, so may they be used in the defense of the valley, on any canal connecting the Mississippi river and Lake Pontchartrain. Changes are constantly occurring in the details of work of defense due to development of armament, munitions and transport. The never-ending development of range and caliber has assumed vast importance, particularly with reference to the effect on the protection of cities from bombardment. Naval guns are now capable of hurling projectiles to distances of over 50,000 yards, 28 to 30 miles. For the protection of the valley we should have at New Orleans armament mounted on floating platforms which will hold the enemy beyond the point where his shells may not reach their objective, and in this operation the canal, affording means of rapid transport, will render invaluable and essential service."

A country's ports are its watergates. Their local importance is comparatively small. They are important or not according to whether they are on trade routes, and easily accessible. An infinitesimal part of the trade that flows through New Orleans originates or terminates there. The back country gets the bulk of the business. The development of the harbor is for the service of the interior. It is essentially national.

From every point of view, therefore, it is the duty of the national government to take over the Navigation Canal and release the monies of the state so they may be devoted to the improvement of the waterway with wharves and other works in aid of the nation's commerce.

ECONOMIC ASPECT OF CANAL.

Tied to the Mississippi Valley by nearly 14,000 miles of navigable waterways, and the largest port on the gulf coast and the most centrally situated with respect to the Latin-American and Oriental trade, New Orleans is naturally a market of deposit. The development of the river service, in which the government set the pace in 1918, is restoring the north and south flow of commerce, after a generation of forced haul east and west, along the lines of greatest resistance; and New Orleans has become the nation's second port. Its import and export business in 1920 amounted to a billion dollars.

Ninety per cent of the nation's wealth is produced in the Valley, of which New Orleans is the maritime capital. It is the source of supply of wheat, corn, sugar, lumber, meat, iron, coal, cotton oil, agricultural implements, and many other products. It is a market for the products of Latin-America and the Orient.

With the co-ordination of river, rail and maritime facilities, and sufficient space for development, it is inevitable that New Orleans should become a mighty manufacturing district. Such enterprises as coke ovens, coal by-product plants, flour mills, iron furnaces, industrial chemical works, iron and steel rolling mills, shipbuilding and repair plants, automobile factories and assembling plants, soap works, packing plants, lumber yards, building material plants and yards, warehouses of all kinds, etc., would be encouraged to establish here if given the proper facilities, and the Industrial Canal is the answer to this need, for under the laws of Louisiana private industries can not acquire or lease property on the river front. Even before the completion of the Canal, the dream has been partly realized--with the establishment of two large shipyards on the Canal, which otherwise would have gone somewhere else, and the building of the army supply base on the same waterway, largely due to the enterprise of the port.

As Colonel E. J. Dent, U.S. district engineer, said before the members' council of the Association of Commerce, February 17, 1921, the Industrial Canal will be the means of removing the handicaps on New Orleans' foreign trade. "I hold no brief for the Industrial Canal," he continued, "but speaking as one who has no interest in it but who has studied the question deeply, I will say that five years from now, if you develop the Industrial Canal as it should be developed, you will be wondering how on earth you ever got along without it."

Before the constitutional convention of Louisiana, on April 4, 1921, he elaborated this thought as follows:

"The Industrial Canal will furnish to New Orleans her greatest need. It should be possible to build docks there where the entire cargo for a ship may be assembled. Under present conditions in the river it is often necessary for a ship to go to three or four docks to get a complete cargo.

"Last year there passed through the port of New Orleans 11,000,000 tons of freight valued at $1,100,000,000. This required 1,000 loaded freight cars a day passing over the docks, fifteen solid trainloads of freight each day. The inbound freight was about 5,000,000 tons and the outbound about 6,000,000. This is extraordinarily well balanced for any port in the United States. This would mean about 5,000 steamers of an average capacity of 2,000 tons.

"The proper place to assemble a cargo is on the docks. Last year the Dock Board allowed but seven days for assembling the cargo for a ship--only seven days for assembling 250 carloads of stuff. Then last year the Dock Board would not assign a ship a berth until it was within the jetties. These are some of the difficulties.

"What New Orleans needs is 50 to 100 per cent more facilities for her port. Last summer the port of New Orleans was congested, but she held her own because other ports were congested. But that may not occur again. If you want to hold your own you must improve your facilities."

Wharves can be built a great deal cheaper on the fixed-level canal, with its stable banks. And that is the only place specialized industries can secure water frontage.

Sooner or later the government will adopt the free port system, by which other countries have pushed their foreign trade to such heights. Free ports have nothing to do with the tariff question. They are simply zones established in which imports may be stored, re-packed, manufactured and then exported without the payment of duties in the first place, duties for the refund of which the present law makes provision, but only after vexatious delays and expensive red tape. Precautions are taken to prevent smuggling. In the preliminary investigations and recommendations made by the Department of Commerce, New York, San Francisco and New Orleans have been designated as the first free ports that should be established. With the ample space it offers for expansion, the Industrial Canal is the logical location for the free zone.

Counting the $15,000,000 contract of the Doullut & Williams Shipyard, the $5,000,000 contract of the Foundation Company Shipyard, the $13,000,000 army supply base, the Industrial Canal has already brought $33,000,000 of development to New Orleans, 60 per cent more than the cost of the undertaking. More than half of this was for wages and material purchased in New Orleans. The state has gained hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. About half the money spent on the Industrial Canal was wages; and helped to increase the population, force business to a new height, raise the value of real estate, and make New Orleans the financial stronghold of the South.

What indirect bearing on bringing scores of other industries to New Orleans, which did not require a location on the waterway, the building of the Industrial Canal has had, there is no way of ascertaining.

Since the work was begun the Dock Board has received inquiries from a hundred or so large enterprises regarding the cost of a site on the canal. That they have not established there is due to the fact that the Canal has not yet been completed, and the Dock Board has announced no policy.

It is now working on that question with representatives of the Association of Commerce, Joint Traffic Bureau, Clearing House Association, Cotton Exchange, Board of Trade, and Steamship Association.

There is no use trying to guess at what the policy will be. It is too big a problem, and must be worked out very carefully, with reference to a confusing tangle of cross-interests.

Two principles have already been categorically laid down by President Hudson and endorsed by the Dock Board at an open meeting of April 5, 1921, with the commercial and industrial interests of the city, planning for the policy of the Canal:

First, that the development of the Canal shall not be at the expense of the river. Wharf development will be pushed on the river to meet the legitimate commercial demands of the port. No one is to be forced on the Canal. That would hurt the port. It is not thought that such forced development would be necessary, and the Canal will be kept open for the specialized industries that can best use the co-ordination of the river, rail and maritime facilities.

Second, that the control of the property along the Canal, owned by the Dock Board, will not go out of the hands of the Board. There will be long-term leases--up to ninety-nine years, but no outright sale. Furthermore, the private land on the other side of the Dock Board's property will not be allowed to be developed at the expense of the state's interests. So the frontage on the Canal will be developed before there is any extensive construction of lateral basins and slips.

What will be the rate charged for a site? Will it be based on the actual cost of the Canal and its maintenance? Or will the state consider it a business investment like a road or street, and charge the property owners thereon less than the cost of construction, collecting the difference in the general progress? That, too, is a question which calls for considerable study before it can be answered.

With the Industrial Canal open, sites available on long leases to business enterprise, and with our tax laws relating to the processes of industry and commerce revised and made more favorable, New Orleans will enter a period of expansion and development on a scale hardly yet dreamed of by her most far-visioned citizens, with enlarged profit and opportunity for all her people.

New taxable wealth will be created rapidly. New needs for taxable property will arise. The tax burden on all will be distributed more widely and when contrasted with the earning power of such property will become less and less of a burden.

This will be so because the water frontage through which the Canal is being created for the attraction of many enterprises which cannot locate on the river front, is all within the limits of the city of New Orleans.

With this Canal in operation, New Orleans will possess to the fullest degree the three great systems of port operation: Public ownership and operation of the river harbor facilities; public ownership of the land and private operation of facilities on the Industrial Canal; and private ownership of the land and private operation of the facilities on the new channel to the sea.

No other port in the country has the capacity for this trinity of port systems.

No other port possesses such a hinterland as is embraced within the Mississippi Valley, nor so extensive and so complete a system of easy-grade railroads and navigable waterways penetrating its hinterland.

No other port holds so strategic a position in the path of the new trade routes connecting the region of greatest productivity with the new markets of greatest promise in Latin-America and the Orient.

CONSTRUCTION COSTS AND CONTRACTORS.

Everything is relative. Looking at the total, some may think that the cost of the Industrial Canal is large. So it is--compared with the cost of an irrigation ditch through a 20-acre farm. But comparing the cost with the wealth it is invested to produce--has already begun to produce--it dwindles to a mere percentage. And a comparison of construction costs on the Industrial Canal with similar work done elsewhere during the same time is very much in favor of the former.

Witness the following figures shown in the books of the engineering department of the Dock Board:

Dredging, including the canal prism and the excavation of the sites of the bridge foundations, siphon and lock, averaged .2784 cents a cubic yard. The highest cost was in the lock section, from which 609,302 cubic yards were excavated at an average cost of .3796 cents a cubic yard. On the siphon and Florida Walk bridge section, including two other deep cuts, the 814,919 cubic yards excavated cost an average of .2607 cents a cubic yard. On the Louisville & Nashville bridge section, the 1,023,466 cubic yards excavated cost an average of .2363 cents a cubic yard. From there to the lake, 1,673,787 cubic yards, the average cost was .2411 cents. Dredging costs were below the original estimates when labor and supplies were 50 per cent cheaper.

The 90,000 cubic yards of concrete in the lock cost an average of $22.50 a cubic yard. This includes cost of material, mixing, building forms, pouring and stripping forms. Mixing and pouring, from the time the material was handled from the storehouse or pile, averaged $1.20 a cubic yard. It would be hard to find cheaper concrete on a work of similar magnitude anywhere, say the engineers.

On the siphon the concrete work cost more, because it was a subterranean job, with elaborate shaping. The price there was $35 a cubic yard, in place, including material and form work.

To drive the 17,000 bearing piles and 7,000 traveling piles on which the lock is floated, cost an average of 15 cents a running foot. This does not include the cost of the piling.

Construction steel cost .12 cents a pound, and erection around 4 cents. These were standard prices.

The lock gates, weighing 5,285,000 pounds, cost $845,600, in place. This does not include opening and closing machinery.

Three of the bascule bridges crossing the Canal, weighing 1,600,000 pounds each, cost $250,000 each, erected. The fourth bridge, near the lock, weighing 1,000,000 pounds, cost $200,000, erected. This is for superstructure only--it does not include the foundation.

The emergency dam bridge, weighing 350,373 pounds, and its 108,256 pounds of turning machinery, cost $96,728, in place. Hoisting machinery cost $40,000 more.

The eight girders of the emergency dam, weighing 90 tons each, at $240 a ton, cost $172,800.

Machinery for working the ten lock gates, the eight filling gates, and the six capstans--twenty-four 52-horse power electric motors--cost $21,479, f.o.b. New Orleans.

The plant for unwatering the lock, consisting of one pump with a capacity of 15,000 gallons a minute, and two with a capacity of 250 gallons each, cost, erected, $11,000.

Total mechanical equipment used on the Industrial Canal weighs 14,500 tons. Its cost, including power-house, electrical connections, etc., is $1,516,000.

Plant and equipment for building the Canal, including locomotives, cranes, piledrivers, dredges, tools, etc., cost $781,232. Depreciation, up to February, 1921, is set at $266,874, leaving a balance of $514,358, carried as assets. Much of this has already been sold, and more will be disposed of.

Following are the firms that executed contracts on the Industrial Canal:

OUTSIDE NEW ORLEANS.

Lock gates and emergency dam girders: McClintic-Marshall Construction Company, Pittsburg, Pa.; designed by Goldmark & Harris Company, New York.

Filling gates: Coffin Valve Company, Indian Orchard, Mass.

Miscellaneous valve equipment: Ludlow Valve Company, Troy, N.Y.

Capstans: American Engineering Company, Philadelphia, Pa.

Mooring posts: Shipbuilding Products Company, New York, N.Y.

Miter gate moving machines: Fawcus Machine Works, Pittsburg, Pa.

Motors, control boards and miscellaneous electrical equipment: General Electric Company, Schenectady, N.Y.

Bridge crane and bascule bridges: Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Steelton, Pa. Former designed by Goldmark & Harris Company, New York, N.Y.; latter, by Strauss Bascule Bridge Company, Chicago, Ill.

Steel sheet piling: Lackawanna Steel Company, Buffalo, New York.

Hoists and cranes: Orton & Steinbrenner, Huntington, Ind.; American Hoist and Derrick Company, St. Paul, Minn.

Conveyor equipment: Webster Company, Tiffany, Ohio; Barker-Greene Company, Aurora, Ill.

Woodworking machinery: Fay & Egan Company, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Pipe: U.S. Cast Iron Pipe Company, Birmingham, Ala.

Lumber and piling: Hammond Lumber Company, Hammond, La.; Great Southern Lumber Company, Bogalusa, La.

Dredges: Bowers Southern Dredging Company, Galveston, Tex.; Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Company, Mobile, Ala.

IN NEW ORLEANS.

Cinder and earth fill: Thomas M. Johnson.

Levee work: Hercules Construction Company; Hampton Reynolds.

Sand and gravel: Jahncke Service, Inc.; D. V. Johnston Company.

Cement: Atlas Portland Cement Company, the Michel Lumber and Brick Company being local agents.

Lumber and piling: Salmen Brick and Lumber Company; W. W. Carre Company, Ltd.

Coal: Kirkpatrick Coal Company; Tennessee Coal, Iron and R.R. Company.

Reinforcing steel and supplies: Tennessee Coal, Iron and R.R. Company; Ole K. Olsen.

Rail and track accessories: A. Marx & Sons.

Concrete mixers: Fairbanks Company.

Repairs and castings: Dibert, Bancroft & Ross; Joubert & Goslin Machinery and Foundry Company; Stern Foundry and Machinery Company.

OTHER PORT FACILITIES.

"New Orleans," says Dr. Roy S. MacElwee in his book on Port and Terminal Facilities, a subject on which he is considered an authority, "is the most advanced port in America in respect to scientific policy." The Shipping Board echoed the compliment in its report of its port and harbor facilities commission of April, 1919, when it said: "New Orleans ranks high among the ports of the United States for volume of business, and presents a very successful example of the public ownership and operation of port facilities. It is one of the best equipped and co-ordinated ports of the country."

New Orleans is the principal fresh water-ocean harbor in the United States. Landlocked and protected from storms, it is the safest harbor on the Gulf Coast. Almost unlimited is the number of vessels that can be accommodated at anchor. Alongside the wharves the water is from thirty to seventy feet deep. The government maintains a 33-foot channel at the mouth of the river.

The "port of New Orleans" takes in about 21 miles of this harbor on both sides of the river. This gives a river frontage of 41.4 miles, which is under the jurisdiction of the Dock Board, an agency of the state. The Board has, to date, improved seven miles of the east bank of the river with wharves, steel sheds, cotton warehouses, a grain elevator and a coal-handling plant of most modern type, together with other facilities for loading and unloading. Authority has been granted to issue $6,500,000 in bonds for increasing these facilities.

Wharves, elevators and warehouses built by railroads and industrial plants on both sides of the river bring up the total improved portion of the port to 45,000 linear feet, capable of berthing ninety vessels 500 feet long. These facilities are co-ordinated by the only municipally owned and operated belt railroad in the United States, which saves the shipper much money. More than sixty steamship lines connect the port with the world markets; the government barge line, a number of steamboat lines, and twelve railroad lines connect it with the producing and consuming sections of the United States.

Now nearing completion is the Public Coal Handling Plant. Built by the Dock Board to develop the business in cargo coal, it is costing more than $1,000,000.00, and will have a capacity of 25,000 tons. It is of the belt-conveyor type. The plant will be able to:

1. Unload coal from railway cars into a storage pile;
2. Unload coal from cars into steamers or barges;
3. Load coal from storage pile into steamers or barges;
4. Unload coal from barges into steamers and storage pile;
5. Load coal from barges or storage pile into cars.

At the 750-foot wharf the plant can take care of three ships at one time, with a maximum loading capacity of 800 to 1,000 tons an hour.

Other coaling facilities at the port are furnished by:

Illinois Central Railroad: Tipple with capacity of 300 tons an hour;

New Orleans Coal Company: Two tipples, capacity 150 and 350 tons an hour; floating collier to coal ships while freight is being taken aboard at the wharf, capacity 175 tons an hour; collier, capacity 150 tons an hour.

Alabama and New Orleans Transportation Company: Storage plant with loading towers on Lake Borgne canal, just below the city;

American Sugar Refining Company: Coal plant, capacity, 70 tons an hour, for receiving coal from barges and delivering it to boiler house;

Monongahela River Coal and Coke Company: Floating collier.

Fuel oil facilities for bunkering purposes are furnished by:

Gulf Refining Company: Storage capacity, 100,000 barrels; bunkering capacity, 800 barrels an hour;

Texas Oil Company: Storage capacity, 150,000 barrels; bunkering capacity, 1,500 barrels an hour;

Mexican Petroleum Corporation: Bunkering capacity, 1,500 barrels an hour;