IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 7 .^ // {/ :/ <" u. •^ fA 1.0 I.I ilM 13 2 I 36 11^ IlM |M 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 6" ► V] ^ //, M O /. /; / /A Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY M580 (716) 872-4503 Q. .elure. H 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 % ii. ^^^^ jRAND TRUNK RAILWAY OF CANADA. «l ■'.''^>, I ■: r KEPORT ON T 4 mWDENCE (SHFARER SCHEME). E. P. HANNAFORD, 17th March, 1883. MONTREAL: PRINTMD BY THE QAZKTl'E T>RINTIXut it may be inferred that as the promoters will be glad of all the water at low stages of the River to keep up the level of the Harbour, the South channel will have no serious extra, discharge such as to create floods by the overflow or backing of the water. In Winter and Spring the features become entirely dilferent. The Embankment stretching obliquely across the River from the Western abutment of the Victoria Bridge to St. Helen's Island, may be considered as solid throughout because the sixty-live openings will be packed with ice from top to bottom. It needs no Engineer to demonstrate this, every " habitiint " know^s it. It will take place whether the sluices are opened or closed. The frazil will form and move into the apertures, and .so cement them as to make the raising of the gates extremely difl5.cult, owing to anchor-ice, or if lifted, the apertures will still be blocked ^'. with ii'o and so mattM-ially reduco the quantity of water passing- through thcin. It may he said, " How is it that watiM- power is fur- nished throughos Humes " or sluices from the Ijachiue Canal and other sources in wiut*;r ? " The reply is, that the Lachine Canal is a mill pond of quiet water, its ice is on the surface only, hence the sluice gates work with comparative ease. The St. Lawrence River will not he a quiet pond, but on the contrary a rushing mass of water a,nd fraatl under its surface ice intermixed with innumerable blocks of moving ice large and small, ready to rush into the sluice way apertures there to be mixed with //us// and cemented by anchor-ice into a compact mass that will hold down the sluice gates and fill the apertures, like molten lead run into a setting of iron with stone. But few are aware of what is going on under the St. Lawrence surface-ice, or realise that every winter the frasil ice forms under the surface ice and clings to it» making a mass at some points extending to the very bottom of the river. At the Victoria Bridge, in February of this year, I found the surface ice 3 feet thick, and in some places the/m.siV ice was nine leet thick below it. This was observed where the stream was rushing with a velocity equal to a torrent. The frasil ice holds its position, for it clings to the surface ice, the water in its rush becoming excel- lent material for making more anchor ice, bec^ause such ice only forms were water is agitated, not where it is in repose. It is, therefore, no assumption, or an engineering theory that these sluice-ways would be blocked with frasil, but is a fact patent to everyone conversant with our climate. Therefore we must now see where the winter and flood water of the St. Lawrence would go. A* 6 -TT— I- it It could not go over the ombankmont, because the summit will be above flood level, and therefore the only other passrge way is by the South channel. Now what would be state of this channel in su(;h a case ? It would have to carry its own Hood water as well as that of the current of St. Mary. In fact the South channel would have to carry all the water of the river with the ice, both surface &nd ft asi/. The effect of forcing the full discharge of the St. Law- rence into a channel which in winter is usually choked with fraifil to the bottom, would bo an experiment fraught with very great danger to the adjoining neighbourhood. It is true that '• water finds its own level," and without going into intricate calculations to prove what the level of the back water would be raised to by the proposed scheme, I am satisfied from experience that to direct the whole of the waters of the St. Lawrence in winter into the South channel, would increase the height of the water at the Victoria Bridge and Laprairie Basin, and that floods such as frequently oc;cur would be greatly increased in the neighbourhood of St. Lambert, Laprairie, and Point St. Charles, to the serious injury of the property of the Railway Company and other proprietors. Mr. Bateman says that the water will be raised 4 ft. 6 in. at the Victoria Bridge, but that this will not affect the low lands around Lapraire. But as the winter level of Laprairie Basin is now level with, and floods the low- lands when the water at the Victoria Bridge is only two feet below the level of Laprairie Basin, it becomes self- evident that the contemplated rise of 4^ ft. at the Victoria Bridge will back up the water at Laprairie to a greater extent. To fix, however, the exact limit of the backing of water by ice-jams and gorges is impossible. At Laprairie, the low-lands traversed by tbe Kaihvay have been inundated to an alarming extent, causing serious *f' 4\ I«A.4 w.>>/in« (jynjIRJH ■■ 1 i anxiety to the neighbourhood and to the Railway Com- pany. The inhabitants feared that the waters of the vSt. Lawrence would How into the Chainbly Basin. It would be granting- a very dangerous power to concede authority to carry out a scheme such as pro})osed, Avhen the result of it must be to increase the overllow of the river. I will not dwell on the position of the k^outh shore lands below the Victoria Bridge beyond saying that as the level of the river is someti)ues only a few feet below the South shore, it follows, that with "all the main ice of the River " St. Lawrence ]>assing down the South channel instead " of passing through the Harbour," (this is what Mr. Bateman says), such ice will gorge the South channel to its bottom ; and as its bed is of rock the j^^ressure on the sides would tear away the shores or dam the back water and overflow the adjoining liinds. The construction of levees would not prevent the ice scaling the shores and Railway works; whilst the water backed up by the rising ice would pour into every local channel and ditch with disastrous results. As to the damage by ice to the Victoria Bridge by throwing all the w^ater into the South channel, the Bridge structure is a strong one and may be considered able to take care of itself. But as ice has been known to pile up and strike the tubes and climb ( ver the approaches, I certainly advise the Company to resist any scheme tending to increase the height of water at its site. The winter and summer discharge of the St. Lawrenec is varied by rain fall, winds, melting of snow and blocking of ice. Ice is the chief factor in producing these fluctua- tions. It commences forming early in winter under the surface ice and piles up until it gorges the channels. The river discharge has either to clear away the ice or raise its own level. It does the latter becvusv' with the ice so & . 8 formed and packed it is the easiest way of obtaining vent, thus all the winter the ice level is continually changing in proporiion as the ice or the water gets the mastery in the channels. In the spring when the ice runs are augmented by additional packs from above, and the channels below are still more gorged with ice, the river rises higher and higher until the pressure or head breaks or overflows the dam. The J^iagara river at Fort Erie, at th'> site of the Inter- national Bridge, has a w4dih of 1850 feet, and a depth of Waaler at its centre of 45 feet. Through this channel there passes per second 1,585,040 gallons (see Colonel Gzowski, M.I.C.E. & M.A.S.C.E. on International Bridge, 1873.) This is equivalent to 884 millions of cubic feet per hour. Now the Niagara river at this point does not freeze from shore to shore ; in fact only shore ice is formed and that by reason of the Bridge w orks ; and Colonel Crzowski says the variations in its surface (leaving out of consideration the sudden rises and falls caused by storms, etc.,) are not more than two feet. Here we have an example of the kind of channel re- quired to pass ice, viz., a deep one, and it is this depth, added to the current, that enables the Niagara river to discharge its waters in winter without affecting its height. Take the great rivers of the North, the St. Clair, the Niagara, and St. Lawrence, and it will be seen that they plough for themselves channels of depth, rather than spread out into additional surface area to pass their dis- charges ; and this element of depth varies with the velocity of the stream. The St. Clair Flats are remarkable examples of this power of ice to cut out channels. The clay is hard and indurated, yet the ice has carved out passages thirty feet deep and these apart from the main river, or International 9 boundary. I refer to such as the " Basset Channel " whieh is narrow with banks, where the ice impinges, perpendicular, in some oases overhanging, with sides so hard as to be reliable for standing on to the very edge. In the river St. Lawrence, at Montreal, similar features exist, the South channel being broad and shallow but with a hard, rocky bottom. When the ice became gorged in this channel an additional flow of it had to carve an outlet in softer material, which it found on the West or North shore (St. Helen's Island l)eing too hard). It was by such a process that St. Mary's channel became the natural one for the ice to j)ass, and it now possesses the requisite qualities of depth with sufficient current. To close this natural channel for carrying ice, and to force all the ice down the South channel, would be work ing against nature. The ice would have to seek some other outlet when it gorged in this channel, which it certainly would ; and the backing up of water and over- flowing would be the result, one upon the extent of which although differences in opinion may exist; must be admitted to contain elements of great danger. I have avoided engineering formula or abstruse ligures, and have confined myself to the '* Shearer Scheme," as to its probable effects on the property of the Railway Company and the properties traversed by it, any of the features I have questioned being with the object to prove results and the consequences therefrom, but perbsips I may be allowed to say a few words on the general scheme in its summer aspect. The promoters' engineer intends to make the sluices with a total capacity of 850 millions of cubic feet per hour (equal to the total discharge of the Niagara river over the Falls) and we may reasonably infer that he intends pas- sing thatquantity of water through them ; in fact he says : " in the Summer when all the sluices are discharging full into the Harbour." 10 ( .1* i Now till) present summer discharge through the St. Mary's channel may ])e taken at one hundred millions of cubi<'- feet per hour ; therefore the promoters intend passing through this channel say four hfths of its present discharge. The present velocity of the St. Mary's channel is stated to be 8^ miles per hour, and its future velocity is calculated by Mr. Baleman at 5 miles per hour. How this result can be arrived at I cannot understand, because it is self evident that a reduction in speed of 8 J miles per hour is not to be gained by a reduction in the dis- charge of say 150 millions of cubic feet ol water per hour. Mr. Bateman also says, that an additional quantity of 85 miUions of cubic feet per hotir is to pass through into the ' irbour ; thereby with what will pass through the sluices, increasing the discharge into the Harbour to 985 millions of cubic feet per hour, exclusive of the Lachine Canal. These 85 millions are to come around the foot of St^ Helen's Island and must consequently pass up stream to get " through into the Harbour." I cannot believe that thinking men will be carried away by this theory ; but will take the broad practical view that running water around the foot of St. Helen's Island up stream into the Harbour is not practicable. The down current through St. Mary's channel of 850 millions of cubic feet would overpower the 85 millions at He Ronde in its endeavour " to pass through into the Harbour," and in order to pass the 850 millions of cubic feet of water per hour down the St. Mary's channel, it must be evident that the in-esent current cannot be materially reduced, and if the current is materially reduced, say from 8| miles per hour to 5, as Mr. Bateman says, then it can only be done by decreasing proportion- ately the quantity of water passed through the channel which means the lowering of the water in the Harbour and passing more water down the South channel 11 The Ibllowing gives the waterway at the Victoria Bridge : — ft. in. Distance between the abutments face to face 6,567 8 Doduct Piers 44't 9 Avf-ilable water way 6,122 6 Sectiona. area of water way at Square feet Mean summer level 50,000 Ditto, average winter ice level 106,000 It will thus be seen that the sectional area way at the Victoria Bridge is double in winter what it is in summer, and yet no more water is passed through the Bridge openings in winter than in summer, the ice in winter controls it, and were it not for the St. Mary's chann^ ' carry off the ice and water, it must be apparent tc il, that the South channel could not do the work without gc ing, backing up, and over-flowing. Even now di ng an ordinary spring shove, the ice is carried up a]c g the shores to the Banks and highway; and what the result would be with all the St. Lawrence dis- charging through the South channel, and additional obstruction in it from Bridge piers is beyond my ability to estimate. J do not, however, hesitate to s jate that the damage to the publr^ and to the Railway (company would be most serious, and I consider it incumbent upon the G-rand Trunk Railway Company to take every legitimate means to prevent the proposed scheme being carried out K. P. HANNAFORD, Chief Enfi^ineer, G-U/VND Trunk Railway Co. > '• /