Cape Cod and the Old colony (1921) (14760153046)

Identifier: capecodoldcolony1921brig (find matches)
Title: Cape Cod and the Old colony
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: Brigham, Albert Perry, 1855-1932
Subjects: Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony) Cape Cod (Mass.)
Publisher: New York and London, G.P. Putnam's Sons
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Connecticut Libraries



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n of the governorof the state, the canal project was revived, andthe advantages were believed to be superiorto those to be gained by tunnelling moun-tains. Hoosac Tunnel was then under con-struction and long years before it had beenproposed to tunnel the Hoosac range for acanal. This was prior to the railway era inthe Berkshires. The Cape Cod Canal as finally constructedfollows the only route which, as it woiild seem,was ever open to serious consideration. Whileoperated by the government during the war,and now under agitation for federal owner-ship, it was dug and is still owned by privatecapitalists. It was opened in April, 1916, tovessels drawing twenty-five feet of water.The canal is wholly at sea level, and has nolocks. The canal proper is 7.68 miles in length,but the approaches had to be dredged, so thatit is scarcely an error to say that the canal hasa length of thirteen miles. The bottom widthis one hundred feet, making the waterway,until further widened, a one-way canal. About
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Roads and Waterways 225 twenty or twenty-five million tons of coast-wise shipping have passed each year aroundthe Cape. With widening to two hundredfeet at the bottom, the ditch would, it isthought, accommodate about ninety per centof this traffic. Such a result is hardly to beexpected without government ownership andthe abolition of toll charges. The advantages of the canal were in sub-stance foreseen by the fathers, who, however,could not look forward to the submarineattack which startled the Cape dwellers atOrleans in the summer of 1918. This piece ofinside route, coupled with other proposed in-side water lines to the southward, will giveastonishing savings of distances between Bos-ton and such ports as New York, Philadelphia,and Baltimore. There would also be greatsaving of time, not only proportional to theshortening of distance but through the avoid-ance of delay on account of storm. Largercargoes could be carried, and the charges formarine insurance would be diminished. The Cap