PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

It is my first duty to you gentlemen, the members of this Society, to thank you for the honor you have conferred on me by electing me to the presidential chair for the past year, the highest position in his profession a civil engineer can occupy, and I feel the compliment all the more, inasmuch as to most of you I was personally unknown. I must claim your indulgence for any shortcomings on my part, for owing to non-residence at head-quarters my attendance at the regular meetings has not been as frequent as I had hoped, nor have my efforts for the advancement of the society been commensurate with my interest in its affairs.

It is a satisfaction to us all to know that under the able presidency of my predecessor, your first president, the society has been so well organized and its council and officers have been so zealous and efficient, that the work has been most successfully carried on. From the annual report of council it is gratifying to observe the continued prosperity of the Society, and also the interest which has been awakened in its work throughout the Dominion. Its roll of membership extends from Halifax to Victoria, and the field of its operations covers half a continent. At the end of the second year of its existence, the Society numbers 542, made up of 2 Honorary members, 259 Members, 87 Associate members, 47 Associates and 147 Students. I venture to say that none of the older engineers had any idea there were so many members of the profession in Canada as have actually joined our Society. There has been no lack of original papers, on engineering subjects, to be read at the regular meetings, which have been well attended, and the records of the Transactions show that the discussions been have actively participated in, both in person. and by correspondence.

Following the traditions of the English Institution, I suppose the established usage of according to the president the privilege of delivering an address will always be followed in Canada, though, with us, the

address is given not at the beginning, but at the end of his term, which, in my humble judgment, is better. By your favor, therefore, the heavy burden of delivering an address rests on me, and truly I feel embarrassed by the conviction that there are many abler men in our society who could offer you an address more worthy of the occasion.

To an engineer who has seen much service there can be no lack of subjects from which to make a selection. In looking over the wide range of engineering activity-of which he gains a knowledge from reading, from study, and from his own personal experience he finds too many absorbing questions to attempt their discussion, or even to enumerate them, within the time allotted to an address. Therefore, instead of attempting a survey of the whole field, it is better to confine himself to those subjects with which he is more familiar, or in which he has taken the most lively interest. I will therefore ask your attention while I refer to the following.

HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING.

As the engineering art knows no boundary lines, I may be allowed at the opening of this subject to refer to the recently constructed lock in the State of Michigan at the Sault Ste. Marie, opened for traffic in 1881. I do so because it is the finest piece of hydraulic engineering I have ever seen, and deserves prominent mention. It combines both English and American practice, is well designed and executed, and altogether successful in operation. It reflects credit on the Engineering staff of the United States Army under whose designs and supervision it was constructed.

The canal is one mile in length and sixteen feet in depth. The lock is at the lower end, and is 515 feet long between the gates and 80 feet wide in the chamber, with seventeen feet of water on the sills. The lift is eighteen feet more or less, according to the fall in the rapids between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. The gates are not set opposite to each other on the same axis, but on parallel axes twenty feet apart, so that the width between the gates is reduced to 60 feet, while in the chamber it is 80 feet, the difference being met by reverse curves on either side. Advantage is taken of the natural water power created by the lock, to establish by the side of it an "accumulator" for operating the gates and valves by hydraulic pressure-in the same manner as at the London and Liverpool docks--which works as a charm.

The chamber is filled and emptied by culverts of large dimensions, under the mitre sills, without producing any disturbance of the vessel, because the tunnel or culvert runs the whole length of the chamber,

with openings at the top, so arranged as to distribute the force of the inflowing current along the centre, entirely under the vessel's keel. In 1886 I timed the Can. Pac. Ry. steamer Arthabaska passing through the lock. It took one minute and a half to close the upper gates, seven minutes and a half to empty the lock, and one minute and a half to open the lower gates, altogether from the time of entering the lock, to the time of going out of it again, the passage was made in thirteen minutes, and there was no hurry about it. No doubt, a single vessel, with dispatch, could be passed through the lock in less time than this.

It is only by the great initial pressure afforded by the accumulator, about 600lbs. on the square inch, that the valves and gates could be commanded with so much ease and rapidity. This system has been seven years in operation, and its efficiency proves the great care and skill with which all the details of construction have been wrought out. The lock was six years in building, and cost, including the enlargement of the canal, somewhere about three millions of dollars.

Besides this, there are two other locks, now called the "old locks," built by the State of Michigan, and first opened in 1855, which are still in use.

These old locks are combined, having lifts of nine feet each to overcome the whole fall of eighteen feet. The chambers are 350 feet long, 70 feet wide, and twelve feet on the sills. The gates are suspended from pillars seated on the coping of the quoins, and the chambers are filled and emptied through the gates in the old-fashioned way. The old canal and locks were assumed by the U.S. government in 1881. The registered tonnage passing through the old and new locks in 1886 amounted to upwards of four million tons, and it all passes free, both domestic and foreign. The staple articles of this commerce are, coal, copper, flour, grain, iron ore, pig and manufactured iron, lumber, salt, silver ore and building stones. Before the opening of this canal, the commerce here was nil. It had its birth in 1855, and so astonishing has been its growth that it threatens soon to exceed the capacity of both locks, in view of which the United States Government has already commenced a second enlargement, the estimated cost of which reaches nearly five millions of dollars.

This new lock is to occupy the site of the old combined locks, and is to surpass all other locks in the grandeur of its dimensions. It will have a chamber 800 feet long between the gates, the width, both in the chamber and at the gates 100 feet throughout, and the depth on the sills 21 feet. Of course there are no vessels on the upper lakes large enough to fill such a lock as this, but it is designed to pass a fleet at a

single lockage-tugs with their tow of barges and craft of all sorts. The canal is to be deepened to twenty feet, and the same depth of channel throughout the rivers that connect the great lakes has been adopted as the ultimate aim of the U. S. Government improvements.

SAULT STE. MARIE CANAL IN CANADA.

Canada has been slow in availing herself of her great opportunities at the Sault Ste. Marie. In 1852, I was sent there by the Government to survey for a canal on the Canadian shore, and although I found a most favorable line, and submitted plans and estimates, nothing further was done. The canal commission of 1871 recommended its construction, and yet no action was taken until last year, when the canal was surveyed by the Chief Engineer of the Department of Railways and Canals, and the works placed under contract.

There is to be one lock of eighteen feet lift to overcome the whole fall at the Rapids which varies from 17 to 18 feet or more, It is to be constructed substantially according to the one on the opposite side of the river, and will be operated by hydraulic power in the same manner but it will be somewhat longer. The chamber will be 600 ft. in length between the gates, 85 feet wide, and narrowed at the gates to 60 feet on opposite sides.

THE WELLAND CANAL AND ST. LAWRENCE NAVIGATION.

There can be no more satisfactory evidence of the prosperity of a country than the increase of the facilities for intercommunication afforded by canals and railways. Canals are put first, because it was by them that Canada first began her system of public works. The Welland, the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, the Richelieu and the Trent were all begun before confederation, and even before the union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada.

As an evidence of progress, reference may be made to the repeated enlargements of our more important works on the Welland and St. Lawrence navigation. The canals have been twice enlarged, the enlargement is in progress with the intention of providing a draft of 14 feet throughout, and steady progress has been made in deepening the channel between Montreal and Quebec, until it has now reached a depth suitable for ocean steamers, of 27 feet at low water.

The Welland Canal, projected by the Hon. William Hamilton Merritt, was begun by a private company in 1824, and opened in 1829. It was constructed under Alfred Barrett their engineer. The locks were all of wood and their dimensions 110 ft, × 22 ft. x 8 ft. The wooden walls bulged out on either side of the chamber, and had to be hewn down from time to time to let the vessels pass.

In 1341, this work was assumed by the government, and the first enlargement was begun the same year under Samuel Power, the resident engineer. The locks were made 150′ × 26′ × 9′ of solid stone masonry, and are in use to this day. The canal was opened in 1845, but being yet unfinished when Mr. Power resigned, it fell to my lot to carry on the works during the years 1846, 1847 and 1848, until recalled to headquarters. By raising the banks and lock walls the draft was increased to ten fect.

The second enlargement was begun in 1871, and completed in 1887 It was not that the volume of trade exceeded the capacity of the former enlargement, but because the locks were not large enough to pass the larger class of vessels, that, at a cheaper rate, were carrying the trade past the canal to Buffalo, and in order to cheapen traffic and secure a fair share of the Western trade, larger locks and a larger canal were absolutely necessary.

The Canal Commission, appointed in 1870 to report on the scale of navigation suitable for the canals, recommended the enlargement of the Welland and St. Lawrence Canals, for a draft of twelve feet, with locks 270′ × 45' x 12', and the enlargement was begun in 1871 on this scale; but before the work had far advanced, the Government decided the draft should be increased to fourteen feet, and as before stated, the Welland canal has been completed on this scale, and such of the locks as have been built on the St. Lawrence canals are of the same dimensions.

In the infancy of our Canadian trade, the most sanguine of our commercial men could scarcely have anticipated such remarkable development in the course of half a century, and yet with all our progress, it cannot be affirmed that we have reached the maximum. Even now, if the scale of navigation could be considered an open question, it is likely the length of the locks and the depth of navigation from Lake Superior to tide water would be further increased, and the number of locks reduced.

It has been suggested that some reference should be made to the first construction of the Cornwall canal, the enlargement of which is now in progress, especially to that portion of it between Moulinette and Milleroches, where the breaches have occurred, and it is my intention to do so, not in this address, but in a paper specially prepared with illustra tions, to be read at one of the regular meetings of the Society. Having spent nearly six years of my younger days as assistant engineer, under I. B. Mills and Colonel Phillpotts, resident engineers in its construction, I may claim the privilege of contributing the facts in relation to the formation of the banks, that have come under my own observation.

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