In June, 1878, he received a letter from the Earl of Beaconsfield announcing to him that Her Majesty the Queen had been pleased to grant him a pension of £200 per annum. This recognition of his labors by his country was a subject of much gratification to Mr. Joule.
Mr. Joule received the Gold Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1852, the Copley Gold Medal of the Royal Society in 1870, and the Albert Medal of the Society of Arts from the hand of the Prince of Wales in 1880.
J. T. BOTTOMLEY.
THE NEW YORK CANALS.
The recent adoption of the constitutional amendment abolishing tolls on the canals of New York State has revived interest in these water ways. The overwhelming majority by which the measure was passed shows, says the Glassware Reporter, that the people are willing to bear the cost of their management by defraying from the public treasury all expenses incident to their operation. That the abolition of the toll system will be a great gain to the State seems to be admitted by nearly everybody, and the measure met with but little opposition except from the railroad corporations and their supporters.
At as early a date as the close of the Revolutionary War, Mr. Morris had suggested the union of the great lakes with the Hudson River, and in 1812 he again advocated it. De Witt Clinton, of New York, one of the most, valuable men of his day, took up the idea, and brought the leading men of his State to lend him their support in pushing it. To dig a canal all the way from Albany to Lake Erie was a pretty formidable undertaking; the State of New York accordingly invited the Federal government to assist in the enterprise.
The canal was as desirable on national grounds as on any other, but the proposition met with a rebuff, and the Empire State then resolved to build the canal herself. Surveyors were sent out to locate a line for it, and on July 4, 1817, ground was broken for the canal by De Witt Clinton, who was then Governor of the State.
The main line, from Albany, on the Hudson, to Buffalo, on Lake Erie, measures 363 miles in length, and cost $7,143,789. The Champlain, Oswego, Chemung, Cayuga, and Crooked Lake canals, and some others, join the main line, and, including these branch lines, it measures 543 miles in length, and cost upward of $11,500,000. This canal was originally 40 feet in breadth at the water line, 28 feet at the bottom, and 4 feet in depth. Its dimensions proved too small for the extensive trade which it had to support, and the depth of water was increased to 7 feet, and the extreme breadth of the canal to 60 feet. There are 84 locks on the main line. These locks, originally 90 feet in length and 15 in breadth, and with an average lift of 8 feet 2 inches, have since been much enlarged. The total rise and fall is 692 feet. The towpath is elevated 4 feet above the level of the water, and is 10 feet in breadth. At Lockport the canal descends 60 feet by means of 5 locks excavated in solid rock, and afterward proceeds on a uniform level for a distance of 63 miles to the Genesee River, over which it is carried on an aqueduct having 9 arches of 50 feet span each. Eight and a half miles from this point it passes over the Cayuga marsh, on an embankment 2 miles in length, and in some places 70 feet in height. At Syracuse, the "long level" commences, which extends for a distance of 69½ miles to Frankfort, without an intervening lock. After leaving Frankfort, the canal crosses the river Mohawk, first by an aqueduct 748 feet in length, supported on 16 piers, elevated 25 feet above the surface of the river, and afterward by another aqueduct 1,188 feet in length, and emerges into the Hudson at Albany.