People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1897 — Deep Water To The Ocean. [ARTICLE]

Deep Water To The Ocean.

The report of the deep waterways commission shows that it is feasible to have ocean steamships sail throngh from the Atlantic to Chicago. The commission consisted of President Angell, of Michigan University; John E. Russell and Lyman E. Cooley, able, conservative and scientific men, who could have no motive but the good of their country. They were appointed under a resolution introduced in the Senate in 1895 for a preliminary inquiry as to the practicability of waterways between the ocean and the great lakes. The report is long and does not attempt to give the exact figures but is unequivocal as to the project being desirable and feasible. The commission served without pay and did not exhaust all the appropriation made for expenses. One thing they favor is an appropriation to begin at once the surveys and the investigation as to .controlling the level of Lake Erie and of the Niagara river. The Niagara ship canal is a part, and perhaps a principal part, of the scheme. The commission believes that certain parts of the work can be accomplished with advantage for the time being and so distribute the cost through a series of years. But they distinctly oppose beginning on any circumscribed plan as to the entire work. It should be laid out at the largest, to accommodate ships of largest, draught, and whatever is done look towards the largest possible benefits in the end. Besides the passage through the St. Lawrence which would be international, the commission recommends two exits from Lake Ontario, one by the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain, and thence to the Hudson river, and' the other by way of the Oswego-Oneida-Mohawk Valley and Hudson river. President Cleveland recommends an “economical provision for further prosecution” of the work marked out, at least so far as to obtain all needed ation. Waterways are the proper check on the railroads. Our people will certainly demand that this great project be at some time carried into effect.