There is this to be said that whatever work was done in his dock, was well done.
As soon as possible the two parts were put into the dock, the bulkheads taken out, the parts drawn together on launching ways (very cleverly done by Muir's men), and the plates and beams rivetted together again by rivetters brought down from Buffalo. The hull, both inside and out, was diligently scraped in every part and thoroughly oiled and painted. The main deck was relaid and Chicora was a ship again.
While all this was going on, Mr. J. G. Demary, the "Overseer" of this section of the canal, and I, had been carefully looking over the canal lock and arranging the procedure for putting the boat in for the final lowering down to Lake Ontario level.
Close examination had proved that the conditions of the Port Dalhousie lock, under water, were much more favorable than appeared on the surface. The lock had been built about thirty years previously and there was very little local knowledge about it.
The lock itself was 200 feet on full inside measurement, with both gates closed. The upper gates opening to the upper level, instead of being half the height of the lower gates, were of the same height, and the lock itself was continued at its full size and depth for 33 feet further beyond these upper gates until it came to the "breast wall" of the upper level. With the upper gates open and pressed against the sides, there was thus created an unobstructed length of 233 feet, into which to place and lower the 230-foot steamer, as is shown in the accompanying drawing. It was a very welcome and satisfactory solution which investigation below the water level disclosed.
Like many other problems, it all seems very simple when once the unknown has been studied out and the results revealed, and so it was in this case. The project and the plan of the whole enterprise of bringing the Chicora down had been created by close search into conditions, by the adapting of a sudden opportunity which happened to become available, and thus rendered practicable that which all others had considered to be, and was, impossible.
It was a trying risk and worthy of a good reward.
In an undertaking so exceptional as this was it was unavoidable that unexpected difficulties should from time to time arise, as they often did, yet only to be overcome by decision and pertinacity. Another, at this stage, cropped up which for a time looked most unpleasant and caused much anxiety.
The 230-foot steamer was to be placed in the 233-foot lock, and the water run off so as to bring her to the Lake Ontario level, or 11 feet 6 inches below the upper canal level. It was now found, when trying out every inch of the proposition, that under the water in front of the breast wall there was a big boom, or beam, extending across the lock from side to side.
Demary did not know how it was held in position, for it had been there before he came into the service, but he understood it had been intended to stop vessels laden too deeply from coming up the canal and striking and damaging the stonework of the breast wall.