ceremonies on July 4, 1825, on the Licking summit, to which Governor Clinton of New York was invited. He cast the first spadeful of dirt, and Governor Morris of Ohio, the second spadeful, in the presence of many thousands witnessing the ceremonies.

Mr. Clinton was opposed to Federal regulation of traffic on the canals, and inveighed against the imputation that power to regulate commerce on the canals, which were exclusively the property of the people of the State, was given the United States Government under the commerce clause of the Constitution providing for the regulation of commerce "with foreign nations and among the several states, or with the Indian tribes."

Had a different interpretation of the Constitution prevailed and the United States Government assumed the jurisdiction to regulate commerce on the canals, undoubtedly Congress might then have imposed such regulations as to deprive the State of the power to impose and collect tolls on canal traffic. The exercise of such power by Congress had wrought a loss of millions of dollars to the people of this State, if not its commercial paralysis.

Mr. Clinton's message on this important question, is worthy of a Webster or a Marshall. It fortunately was accepted by the statesmen of that day and subsequent generations as a sound exposition of the commerce clause of the Constitution.

During the session of the Legislature following the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Perry versus Haines, a resolution was introduced in the Senate, providing, in substance, that the State of New York through a duly constituted commission, apply to the War Department of the United States Government to ascertain the opinion of that Department in relation to the improvement of the Erie, Champlain and Oswego canals, as authorized by the Referendum Act, known as Chapter 147 of the Laws of 1903, before proceeding with the improvement.

I was a member of the Senate at the time and coming, unexpectedly as it did, shortly after the approval of the

1. Reported in 101 U. S., pp. 17-55.

Canal Referendum measure at the general election of 1903, and without any apparent warrant there for by anything decided in the case of Perry versus Haines, the resolution was interpreted by canal advocates as another effort to further postpone canal improvement in this State, notwithstanding the express will of the people that it go forward. The assumption of admiralty jurisdiction over the waters of the Erie canal as over those of the Hudson river and other navigable waters of the United States, was not to be construed as an exercise of sovereign control of the waterways themselves, which were the property of the State, any more than the assumption of admiralty jurisdiction by English admiralty courts of maritime causes on the Bosphorus or high seas was an exercise of sovereign control by Great Britain over those waters. This argument was a complete answer to the purpose of the resolution which was rejected without reference to committee. Mr. Clinton's opinion as expressed in his message of 1825 has ever since prevailed in the councils of the State and nation, and as a result New York achieved its commercial supremacy over the other states of the Union. This illustrates the difficult problems that had to be settled by Mr. Clinton and others in the progress of canal construction.

XIII. ENGINEERING PROBLEMS

THE LATERAL CANALS.

There were 300 bridges between Utica and Albany and several hundred other bridges over the entire Erie canal. Some of these were so low as to occasion complaint from passengers on packet-boats. The settling of the banks of the canal in some instances reduced their height, so the matter of their elevation received consideration before the work was entirely completed. Portions of new work were damaged by freshets and by frosts, dams were carried away and banks injured on account of the porous character of the soil of which they were constructed. Repairs were necessary to keep the canal in operation. There were many culverts and they required watching and repairing from time to time.

One of the most important engineering triumphs was that involved in the construction of the Irondequoit embankment, a mile or more in length, over the Irondequoit creek. When James Geddes originally explored the country and recommended the "interior route" from Lake Erie to the Hudson in 1808, he found it desirable in some manner to utilize the waters of the Genesee river as a feeder for the canal. The Irondequoit creek, whose waters were much lower than the waters of the Genesee river, intercepted the proposed line of the canal, and that necessitated the building of an aqueduct or other structure, through the valley and over the creek. To accomplish this result, when he made his survey in 1816, he recommended an embankment 34 feet wide on the top and 229 feet wide on the bottom, and from 40 to 70 feet in height to maintain a canal level to be fed by the waters of the Genesee river as far east as Mud creek. In speaking of this engineering project, in a letter addressed to William Darby, under date of February 22, 1822, James Geddes said:

"In December of that year [1808] I left home . . . and after discovering at the west end of Palmyra that singular brook, which divides, running part to Oswego and part to the Irondequot bay, I levelled from this spot to the Genesee river, and to my great joy and surprise found the level of the river far elevated above the spot where the brooks parted, and no high land between.

"But to make the Genesee river run down Mud creek, it must be got over the Irondequot valley. After levelling from my first line one-half mile up the valley, I found the place where the canal is now making across that stream at Mann's mills. . . . The passage of the Irondequot valley is on a surface not surpassed, perhaps in the world for singularity. No adequate idea can be conveyed without a map. Those ridges along the top of which the canal is carried, are in many places of just sufficient height and width for its support, and for 75 chains the canal is held up, in part by them and in part by artificial ridges, between 40 and 50 feet above the general surface of the earth. . . . The arch through which the stream [Irondequoit creek] passes under this stupendous embankment is 26 feet span, 17 feet high and 245 feet long, resting upon nearly 1,000 piles, some of them driven 20 feet. The surface of this wood foundation is just 70 feet below the top water line of the canal. . . . While traversing

these snowy hills in December, 1808, I little thought of ever seeing the Genesee waters crossing this valley on the embankment now constructing over it. I had, to be sure, lively presentiments, that time would bring about all I was planning, that boats would one day pass along on the tops of these fantastic ridges, that posterity would see and enjoy the sublime spectacle, but that for myself, I had been born many, many years too soon. There are those, sir, who can realize my feelings on such an occasion, and can forgive, if I felt disposed to exclaim 'Eureka,' on making this discovery.

"How would the great Brindley, with all his characteristic anxiety to avoid lockage, have felt in such a case; all his cares at an end about water to lock up from the Genesee river, finding no locking up required. Boats to pass over these arid plains and along the tops of these high ridges, seemed then like idle tales to everyone around me. . . . The Irondequot embankment will, I think, receive the admiration of all visitors. I have seen, sir, the famous Harper's ferry on the Potomac, and if the Philosopher of Monticello could see, when finished, said embankment, I trust he would pronounce it a sight still more worthy across the Atlantic, than Harper's ferry."1

The achievement of James Geddes in this and other remarkable engineering projects entitles him to rank with such a canal engineer as James Brindley, who undertook and carried out by means of aqueducts over valleys and rivers the famous Bridgewater canal; and who, when asked in an examination before the House of Commons, "For what purpose he considered rivers to have been created?" replied, "To feed navigable canals."

There were several other embankments on the Erie and Champlain canals, which carried the waters of the canals across intercepting streams.

The Erie canal, when constructed, was 363 miles long and had 83 locks and its summit level was 688 feet above the level of the sea. The Champlain canal was 66 miles long and had 20 locks; and the Glens Falls feeder and pond were 12 miles long and had 13 locks.

The Canal Commissioners in their report for the year 1818 say that "locks are the most difficult of all the works which will be necessary and their construction is already well understood in this State."

Nathan S. Roberts, who was appointed assistant engineer and who under Benjamin Wright, the principal engineer of the middle section, "conducted the operation of levelling and designating the canal line, as it was actually established most of the way from Salina to the Seneca river,"1 prepared plans for five double combined locks of 12 feet lift each, working side by side to overcome the 60 feet rise at Lockport, and these plans were adopted in preference to those submitted by the other engineers. This was a great achievement for Mr. Roberts, because the project was beset with many difficulties occasioned by the solid rock through which the canal and locks were constructed.

The locks at Little Falls were under the supervision of Canvass White, who, it is said by the Canal Commissioners in their report in 1822, "by a judicious distribution of his locks, dropped his various levels on land giving suitable depth of cutting and requiring but little embankment," and thereby avoided damage by the annual floods of the Mohawk.2

The route of the canal through the Mohawk valley was the occasion of much solicitude on account of difficulties along the Mohawk. After the route had been laid out along the south bank of that river, the commissioners directed Benjamin Wright and James Geddes, the two senior engineers, together with Canvass White, to survey lines on both sides of the river and report thereon. This survey was made and the engineers were of the opinion that it would be wise to construct the canal across and recross the river at certain places. This was to avoid the expense of rockexcavation and the construction of embankments. Between Little Falls and Schenectady there were 13 locks, 11 guard locks, 60 culverts, 13 aqueducts, 105 bridges and 6 dams, nearly all of which were of solid masonry.3

The construction of the locks at Cohoes Falls occasioned serious differences among engineers and the Canal Commissioners, but the "sixteens," as they were popularly called,