HORACE H. DAY, of the Niagara Ship-Canal, American side: Mr. Chairman: In the few minutes assigned to me in which to make my statement I propose to confine myself strictly to the subject. To do full justice to this whole subject would take me two hours, probably. It is known to this committee that I have for a long time identified myself with efforts to promote the Niagara Ship Canal, and I may say have in various ways expended more time and money than perhaps any other person in the country. I have long foreseen that there was no other way by which to meet the just demands of both East and West, and entirely agree with our present Chief Magistrate, whose repeated recommendations in respect to this and other water-ways will stand the test of time, and if he can carry them through during his present term place the nation under even greater obligations for arresting greater calamities than was in the contest which overthrew Southern slavery. It is settled beyond all manner of doubt that water-conveyances are the cheapest. All else has been tried in vain. The war drew the country together, but to-day sectional interests are again rising, and placing the nation in far greater danger than it was from the old systems and institution of the South. Monopolies and anarchies are the same; while the latter was confined to family and blood, the former is a wider spread power, and far more to be feared. It may be regarded as contagious; building up hatred, engendering malice and spite, which has already, and will more effectually resort to political strategy to build up and extend its blighting influence far and wide, bearing down, depressing, and impoverishing one part of the country, while it fosters and protects, through its injustice, another; shutting out man from his fellow man, turning back the rushing tide of God's great ocean of commerce, placing the iron hand of injustice on the mouths of the poor, and robbing the laborer of his hard-earned bread, compelling idleness to revel in the waste which monopoly creates, and obstinacy and tryanny hold, for the selfishness of the few who close the "rings" and make the "corners" upon and in which the nation's best interests are sacrified, ad libitum, as they our lords and masters will. All else had been tried. Cotton was not and could not be king, and usurp the power in one-half the nation; sugar, rice, and tobacco claimed their part and portion in the channels of commerce, and all found a place and a way to reach us. Then came the louder call from all the world for bread, for corn, and other food-products, and what was the answer?

The politicians and monopolists saw that all the world must have what they asked for, and their opportunity was in the demand for bread. How have these monopolists and politicians expressed themselves? Their late actions and the result certainly speak plainer than can I. Credit Mobilier, and numerous others-lesser in the single, yet greater in the aggregate-certainly speaks for itself. All of these things, although passed away, have become the landmarks and foundation to enable us to make a more certain cord to bind us together as a nationhumane, wise, and just, and, necessarily, prosperous. These great water-ways, to make cheap transportation sure, beyond the power of avarice to control, point the only safe way. At least three great avenues from the sea to the Mississippi valley should be undertaken now-one through the northern lakes, the Saint Lawrence, and Champlain to New York, one through Virginia, and one still further south.

The double-track railroad, to be built and owned by the Government, and used by all who might wish to run their cars upon it, would, of course, be desirable, but ten such roads would fail of one great objecta steady foreign market for our surplus products. If this nation relies

upon any kind of railroad, Canada, with British capital, will perform the service cheaper by water through the Saint Lawrence and Montreal, and to compete with this route, and keep the trade in the United States, we will, after all, as I have said, be compelled to resort to the cheap water-transportation. There is no shadow of a doubt of it in my mind.. Looking to the absolute necessity of the Niagara Ship Canal, I have studied how to cheapen the cost of the structure, and shorten the time, and have arrived at a perfect system by which a ship of 1,200 tons can pass from navigable water above the falls to navigable water at Lewiston below the falls, within one hour, allowing fifteen minutes at the elevevator, where one vessel would pass each way in the same time and by one operation.

By the aid of compressed air the entire work of excavation of the rocky bed of the canal on the line of the Government survey, and by the shortest route, can be accomplished with great saving, as the falling water of the Niagara itself will furnish all the power to do the work, and if the United States is willing to donate $4,000,000 to a private company, I can furnish satisfactory assurance that a canal and elevator, capable of passing not less than fifty vessels of 1,200 ton carrying capacity each way every twenty-four hours, can be completed in two years, and delivered to the Government by the owners any time within ten years, at less than $8,000,000. The elevator capacity can be increased at will to any desirable extent, even to passing 200,000 tons of merchandise a day, if so much should be required.

I have brought with me some sketches which will enable me very briefly to explain the mode by which this result is to be accomplished, and from an inspection of which you will see its entire probability, and, by the aid of engineers whom you may call, for the entire certainty of success. I have myself consulted engineers of eminence and know their opinions well. I have studied this matter a long time myself, and can satisfy the country, if they will make the investigations, that the plan I propose is entirely feasible, profitable, and worthy of the consideration of the Government and the people. I hold in my hand, and would be glad to place in that of the committee, a sketch which I will be glad to explain.

(Copies of the diagram referred to were placed in the hands of the committee by Mr. Day.)

The canal will start, on my plan, about three miles above Niagara Falls, and cross by the straightest line possible outside of the village of Suspension Bridge, and, following the old Government survey, strike the river at Lewiston Heights, five and three-quarters miles long. There is only one point at which lockage or lifting will be requisite, and that is at Lewiston, on the American side, as you will all remember, opposite the monument. At that point, perhaps, as the last and best of numerous plans which I have submitted to the consideration of engineers and the people, my last plan and that plan, in its best expression, means to draw the ship up sideways in an iron box, corresponding to a canal-lock, giving the bearings numerous places to support. I published this as the extreme expression of the plan I had in view, to show that it was possible to meet the utmost objection and raise the ship perpendicularly by suitable mechanism. Enough weights suspended on each side of that canal-lock by suitable steel cables will raise and lower that ship at the will of the operator.

Mr. CONKLING. So this is to be by mechanical-power, and not by hydraulic power?

Mr. DAY. Oh, of course, hydraulic-power will have to be used; it is

there in abundance. The sketch in my hand, designed to illustrate how a train of cars may be drawn up a hill, avoiding the necessity of cutting through a tunnel, will at the same time illustrate the method of my lock. The canal-lock in that arrangement stands on a wedge-formed camel, so that the water is level in the lock, and the vessel is level, and thus it is drawn up the incline that we find at Lewiston. Five hundred or 750 feet would be the entire length. Any engineer will admit that there are no mechanical forces which amount to engineering difficulties in doing that. The sketch shows that we can draw it up perpendic ularly.

Mr. DAVIS. What is the elevation there?

Mr. DAY. Three hundred and forty feet, perpendicular.

Mr. CONKLING. And on the slant 700?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir. Vessels would come up at Lewiston, and pass into this lock at the end of it; the gate is closed; water is in it-of course, the larger the vessel the smaller the water-and are drawn up in that way. Two of them may be operated at the same time, one to let down the vessel and the other to lift it. This sketch illustrates a single lock. Two of these, one counterbalancing the other, will be the course adopted. Now, by the aid of the water-power of Niagara Falls, through compressed air, and the machinery for cutting and drilling rock and hoisting up, known to all engineers to-day, it will make unnecessary a large expenditure for the labor of men. The cutting out of the rock at this point will also be done by compressed air and by the water power of Niagara Falls. The cost, when investigated by engineers, will be found to be so very much more than that hitherto proposed and considered by the country that it will startle. In connection with this subject, some ten years ago, I caused a partial survey to be made by engineers, who occupied some two months and a half of their time for my benefit, to learn if I could get out of Lake Ontario into Lake Champlain, and thence through to New York. We found the elevation between Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario, or the river Saint Lawrence below Ogdensburgh, to be over 1,100 feet on the American side of the line. The canal at that time would have cost $12,000,000 to open communication for a 1,200-ton ship from the Saint Lawrence to Lake Champlain. We examined a route just north of the line dipping into Canada, and found the difference of level there not over 40 feet, and the cost $4,000,000. If, in a treaty with Canada, we could provide for the use of so much of their territory as to make that line, we could then bring the produce of the great West down to the lower end of Lake Ontario with these two expenditures, the people paying $4,000,000 for this enterprise, with the privilege of having it back any time within ten years, and the $4,000,000 more from the Saint Lawrence to Lake Champlain would leave the engineers of New York to complete the route from Whitehall to navigation on the Hudson River. I have followed up this subject. I have made many devices to overcome these objections, and have some three or four matured plans. I, myself, like this plan. It is quick; fifteen minutes would be ample for raising one and lowering another ship.

Mr. SHERMAN. Do you mean this vertical plan or the inclined plane? Mr. DAY. Either one of them. They would both come entirely within the range of fifteen minutes. Time is so important. If a vessel can steam from Buffalo directly to this elevator without any obstruction whatever, then I assert, and I have no fear of contradiction, that even if we have to tow a vessel into the canal, we can pass it from the Niagara

River above the falls to the navigable waters of Niagara River below the falls at Lewiston within the period of one hour.

I believe experience has demonstrated that the time would be something in the neighborhood of twenty-four hours, average working, through the Welland Canal. Now a fair value of a ship 1,200 tons for twenty-four hours is somewhere from three to four or five hundred dollars; hence, every vessel can save that much. There are other considerations which will commend this system to the West and statesmen and to the great agricultural West. We can at that point convert the grain, by the aid of the extensive water-power there, into flour, to be raised out of the ship by the water-power of Niagara Falls. It can be then lowered into the ship by the same water power by the aid of compressed air, and it may that within two or three days of the market of New York City. I see that your time is about to be occupied by others; I shall be happy to answer any questions.

Mr. SHERMAN. Have you got the basis of your estimated cost?

Mr. DAY. I have not it here in detail. Parties of wealth and responsibility are willing to unite with me in this proposition, and probably will in the course of the coming session of Congress, and I would like a full canvass of the enterprise.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will take the papers you have presented and give them a careful examination, and if there are any questions we may wish to ask you afterward, we will address you a communication on the subject. Several gentlemen are now present whom we desire to hear this morning, and, as we can probably get this information from you by such means as well as any other, we will do so.

Mr. SHERMAN. If you can send a statement of the elements of cost of this canal, it would be well enough for you to do so, if you can make it out conveniently, giving the distance, excavation, and all the elements of cost as far as you can. Do you know the elevation of the inclined plane of the canal at Newark, N. J.?

Mr. DAY. About 85 feet is my recollection. Mr. E. F. Johnson, an eminent engineer, assisted me in procuring some of these plans, and they had his entire indorsement. I have numerous letters from him which I could, perhaps, furnish, as he is now deceased, which could prove that, and I have also had the opinion of other very eminent engineers, and on that question I do not think there is any possible doubt.

ISRAEL P. HATCH, of Buffalo:

All modern schemes for cheapening transportation in this country are based upon calculations predicated upon the inability of the Erie Canal to transport the products of the West to tide-water, and the fallacy that its maximum capacity has been reached. Estimating its lockages (the only test of capacity) at ten minutes, with 220 days as the season of navigation, and the enlargement of the canal completed with double locks, 56 feet bottom, 7 feet deep, and 70 feet wide, 250,000 of wheat, or 8,000,000 of tons, can be moved over it in one season. The log of the steamer Diven, contending for the prize, showed the lockages to be five minutes. The above amount is twice that of grain ever exported from Chicago, Du Luth, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Toledo in any one year. The entire tonnage of the Erie Canal last year was 6,673,370. This is about a quarter of the tonnage moved over all the canals, rivers, and railways of this country. And the eastward-bound tonnage over the Erie Canal equals one-half of the entire eastern-bound tonnage carried by all methods of transportation. The Erie Canal accomplishes all this in six months, while the railways work all the year. The New York

Times said the other day, as long as our double locks were not completed, we only had a single-lock canal. Cheap transportation over Erie Canal. It is believed by our most experienced men interested in lake navigation, that by the introduction of the steam-barge system, same as upon the Mississippi River, and which is now in successful operation upon the lakes, will reduce freight from Chicago to Buffalo in another year to three cents. In past years it has often been carried at that price. With the increase of upward-bound freight there must be a corresponding decrease in the cost of transportation of return cargoes. A reduction in elevating charges at Buffalo must necessarily follow. They have been reduced already to one cent per bushel.

When the amendment to the constitution, or funding bill, which passed our legislature last winter, shall be ratified by the people next winter at a special election, as provided for in the constitution, in the same way as the amendment for the enlargement of 1854, and the capacity of the Erie Canal is brought up to the legal standard of 1835, now called the enlargement of 1854, and all these improvements are in a progressive state, no one would estimate the cost of transportation over Erie Canal to the city of New York from Buffalo over six cents, as the canal board, under the amendment, will be prohibited from levying any more toll than is necessary for the "expenses of collection, superintendence, and keeping the canals in repair," and a smail charge for sinking fund to pay off canal debt. Under this amendment the interests of western producers, as well as eastern consumers, will be fully protected and guaranteed.

Mr. SHERMAN. You do not take the tonnage of the railways?
Mr. HATCH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHERMAN. But not the steamboats?

Mr. HATCH. No, sir; I suppose that would not be included.

Mr. CONKLING. You talk of artificial channels?

Mr. HATCH. All artificial channels.

Mr. SHERMAN. In your written statement you made it a little broader, "all of the modes of transportation."

Mr. HATCH. My impression now is that it includes all, without going back to examine particularly.

Mr. CONKLING. Your statement is, "all other methods of transportation ?"

Mr. HATCH. Yes, sir; of transportation from the East to the West. Mr. CONKLING. You did not say that?

Mr. HATCH. It should be in that way. too hastily gotten up.

Perhaps my statement was

L. H. DUNAN, auditor-general of the Erie Railroad Company.

Mr. CHAIRMAN: I am present here to represent the Erie Road. At the same time I would say that, if it is at all practicable, I should like to have the committee hear from the Erie Road through Mr. Blanchard, our second vice-president, who we expect here to-night or to-morrow night. If the committee propose to hold any future session in the city, I should like to have them accord the privilege to the Erie Road of hearing from it through him.

The CHAIRMAN. Possibly we can hear him to-morrow, as we have a session then.

Mr. CONKLING. What is the likelihood of his being here to-night rather than to-morrow night?

Mr. DUNAN. If he got away from Buffalo he will be here to-night or to-morrow morning. He can leave Buffalo at 2 o'clock and reach here