Canal Items - 1822

Submitted by Richard Palmer


Ontario Repository, Canandaigua, N.Y., Aug 6,1822
Lansingburgh July 30

Champlain Canal - Many exaggerated reports have been put in
circulation, respecting the injury done to the Champlain canal, and
the dam at Fort Edward, by the late freshet. The last Sandy Hill
Times, a paper published in the neighborhood of the canal, contains
the following article on the subject, which we believe to be correct:--

The Freshet: The damage done by the late freshet, to grass, corn and
other grain growing on the low lands contiguous to Woodcreek is said
to be immense. Much injury was also done to the lumber with which the
creek had been literally filled from Fort Ann to Whitehall, and
waiting a supply of water in the summit level of the canal. So great
was the rise and fury of the stream that large rafts of timber, board,
plank &c. were forced from their moorings, and carried a considerable
distance into the fields, so that when the water receded they were left
"high and dry," and in a perfect state of hotch-potch. The canal, too,
was very considerably impaired.

"Great fears were entertained for the safety of the dam which was
undergoing repairs at Fort Edward; but which was made to ride out the
storm," by the skill and unremitted exertions of the gentleman who
had it in charge. It gives us pleasure to be enabled to state that it is
now considered out of danger, and bids fair to be completed in a
short time, say three weeks."


Geneva Gazette, Aug. 14, 1822
(From the N.Y. Spectator, Aug. 1.)

Onondaga Salt- We learn from the Albany Argus, that extensive
preparations are making to manufacture salt at Salina, by evaporation
in the sun, instead of boiling as has hitherto been practised. Two
companies one from New Bedford, Mass. and the other from this city,
are stated to be engaged in the enterprise. The plan is the same as
that practised by Judge Quincey, near Boston, as described in this
paper a short time since. By the process of boiling, the bitumen
which the water contains, becomes incorporated with the salt; hence
its impurities and hitherto bad reputation; indeed it could not be
relied on with safety, except for the purpose of agriculture and the use of stock.

An entire change by the new process will take place in this
business, by which instead of an impure, weak, and fine salt, which
has hitherto been made here, there will be produced a coarse salt, of
a quality equal to any in the world. There is no limit to the
quantity which may be manufactured on the proposed new plan, as long
as the sun continues to shed its genial rays on the face of this
globe, and wood can be found of which to construct an increased number of vats.

The fountain which has been pouring forth its saline stream
"since time was" is an inexhaustible as the ocean itself. We have long
been surprised that the process of evaporation by the sun, has not
been sooner adopted. The waters at Salina are five or six times strong as
the ocean, and the product must of course be in the same ratio.