Locks provided with sluiceways running the whole length of the side walls have been constructed on the Aire and Calder navigation, on the Scheldt and Meuse Canal, and the Canal du Centre of France. These large sluiceways ensure the rapid filling or emptying of the lock; and by making several side openings along the side walls into the lock-chamber, the inflowing or outflowing currents are distributed so as to have no injurious effect on the vessel inside.
E & F N Spon. London & New York “INK-PHOTO.” SPRAGUE & CO. LONDON.
VIEW FROM THE NIAGARA ESCARPMENT, LOOKING
UP THE WELLAND CANAL TOWARDS LAKE ERIE.
Balanced cylindrical sluice-gates, rising and falling vertically in a circular well communicating with the sluiceways, have been adopted at the new locks of the Scheldt and Meuse Canal, and the Canal du Centre, for opening and closing the sluiceways easily and rapidly. The enlarged locks on the Canal du Centre can be filled or emptied in two minutes; and the passage of vessels through the locks takes less than half the original time.
Mr. E. J. Lloyd, speaking from experience of canals in the Midlands, is of opinion that a multiple of the present size of lock which prevails throughout the Midland district would be best. This would enable the existing craft on those canals, and also most of the barges on larger navigations, to be used in the most economical way possible. It would greatly simplify the conduct and management of low-class mineral traffic, which does not require any care, and could be treated in a similar manner to traffic of the like description on railways—no crews being attached to the boats, which could be detached from the trains, and left at any roadside wharf, until they could be unladen at the convenience of the owners.