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69-476: The Pennsylvania Canal , sometimes known as the Pennsylvania Canal system , was a complex system of transportation infrastructure improvements, including canals , dams, locks , tow paths, aqueducts , and viaducts . The canal was constructed and assembled over several decades beginning in 1824, the year of the first enabling act and budget items. Enacted while railroads were in their infancy ,

138-547: A caisson of water in which boats float while being moved between two levels; and inclined planes where a caisson is hauled up a steep railway. To cross a stream, road or valley (where the delay caused by a flight of locks at either side would be unacceptable) the valley can be spanned by a navigable aqueduct – a famous example in Wales is the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site ) across

207-510: A drainage divide atop a ridge , generally requiring an external water source above the highest elevation . The best-known example of such a canal is the Panama Canal . Many canals have been built at elevations, above valleys and other waterways. Canals with sources of water at a higher level can deliver water to a destination such as a city where water is needed. The Roman Empire 's aqueducts were such water supply canals. The term

276-415: A "cistern", or depressed area just downstream from the fall, to "cushion" the water by providing a deep pool for its kinetic energy to be diffused in. Vertical falls work for drops of up to 1.5 m in height, and for discharge of up to 15 cubic meters per second. The transport capacity of pack animals and carts is limited. A mule can carry an eighth-ton [250 pounds (113 kg)] maximum load over

345-496: A canal has a series of dams and locks that create reservoirs of low speed current flow. These reservoirs are referred to as slack water levels , often just called levels . A canal can be called a navigation canal when it parallels a natural river and shares part of the latter's discharges and drainage basin , and leverages its resources by building dams and locks to increase and lengthen its stretches of slack water levels while staying in its valley . A canal can cut across

414-413: A combination of the three, depending on available water and available path: Smaller transportation canals can carry barges or narrowboats , while ship canals allow seagoing ships to travel to an inland port (e.g., Manchester Ship Canal ), or from one sea or ocean to another (e.g., Caledonian Canal , Panama Canal ). At their simplest, canals consist of a trench filled with water. Depending on

483-549: A journey measured in days and weeks, though much more for shorter distances and periods with appropriate rest. Besides, carts need roads. Transport over water is much more efficient and cost-effective for large cargoes. The oldest known canals were irrigation canals, built in Mesopotamia c.  4000 BC , in what is now Iraq . The Indus Valley civilization of ancient India ( c.  3000 BC ) had sophisticated irrigation and storage systems developed, including

552-581: A rather low gradient for its time. The canal is still in use after renovation. In the Middle Ages , water transport was several times cheaper and faster than transport overland. Overland transport by animal drawn conveyances was used around settled areas, but unimproved roads required pack animal trains, usually of mules to carry any degree of mass, and while a mule could carry an eighth ton, it also needed teamsters to tend it and one man could only tend perhaps five mules, meaning overland bulk transport

621-459: A uniform altitude. Other, generally later, canals took more direct routes requiring the use of various methods to deal with the change in level. Canals have various features to tackle the problem of water supply. In cases, like the Suez Canal, the canal is open to the sea. Where the canal is not at sea level, a number of approaches have been adopted. Taking water from existing rivers or springs

690-554: A visionary scheme to build a ramp system which would roll canal boats over the Allegheny Mountains at an elevation over 2,100 feet (640 m) through the broad uneven saddle of Cresson Pass . Though most of the canals no longer have any function, some segments retain value as historic and recreational sites. Both the Delaware Canal and the lower Lehigh Canal were kept busy into the tough financial years of

759-422: Is a channel that cuts across a drainage divide , making a navigable channel connecting two different drainage basins . Both navigations and canals use engineered structures to improve navigation: Since they cut across drainage divides, canals are more difficult to construct and often need additional improvements, like viaducts and aqueducts to bridge waters over streams and roads, and ways to keep water in

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828-701: Is presumed, introduced in Italy by Bertola da Novate in the 16th century. This allowed wider gates and also removed the height restriction of guillotine locks . To break out of the limitations caused by river valleys, the first summit level canals were developed with the Grand Canal of China in 581–617 AD whilst in Europe the first, also using single locks, was the Stecknitz Canal in Germany in 1398. In

897-599: Is rarely less than 30 metres (98 ft) wide. In the 5th century BC, Achaemenid king Xerxes I of Persia ordered the construction of the Xerxes Canal through the base of Mount Athos peninsula, Chalkidiki , northern Greece. It was constructed as part of his preparations for the Second Persian invasion of Greece , a part of the Greco-Persian Wars . It is one of the few monuments left by

966-418: Is steeper than the desired canal gradient. They are constructed so the falling water's kinetic energy is dissipated in order to prevent it from scouring the bed and sides of the canal. A canal fall is constructed by cut and fill . It may be combined with a regulator, bridge, or other structure to save costs. There are various types of canal falls, based on their shape. One type is the ogee fall, where

1035-452: Is the pound lock , which consists of a chamber within which the water level can be raised or lowered connecting either two pieces of canal at a different level or the canal with a river or the sea. When there is a hill to be climbed, flights of many locks in short succession may be used. Prior to the development of the pound lock in 984 AD in China by Chhaio Wei-Yo and later in Europe in

1104-719: Is the main feature of Delaware Canal State Park (formerly Theodore Roosevelt State Park) between Bristol and Easton. It is continuously intact for its full length of 60 miles (97 km). Other Pennsylvania canal infrastructure on the National Register includes the following: Canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation ) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi ). They carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure , and can be thought of as artificial rivers . In most cases,

1173-610: The Allegheny Front and connect Pittsburgh to the Susquehanna River . When finished in 1834, the trip from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh could be made in three to five days, weather conditions depending. In the fifty years before 1830, the new west was settled and steadily growing as people poured westwards along the various Emigrant Trails into the Midwest to destinations on a million new farms and towns throughout

1242-557: The Conewago Canal , which carried riverboats around Conewago Falls on the Susquehanna River near York Haven . Spurred by construction of the Erie Canal (constructed between 1817 and 1825) and the perceived competitive advantage it would give New York state in moving people and materials to and from the interior of the continent, Pennsylvanians built hundreds of miles of canals during the early 19th century. These included

1311-658: The Elbe , Oder and Weser being linked by canals. In post-Roman Britain, the first early modern period canal built appears to have been the Exeter Canal , which was surveyed in 1563, and open in 1566. The oldest canal in the European settlements of North America, technically a mill race built for industrial purposes, is Mother Brook between the Boston, Massachusetts neighbourhoods of Dedham and Hyde Park connecting

1380-726: The Great Depression . The right of way authorized for the Upper Lehigh Canal became an extension of the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad (LH&S), which the 1837 revised act had established to connect the Wyoming Valley to the Delaware River navigations; the railway would eventually parallel the entire Lehigh Canal operated by its parent LHC&N . The route from Philadelphia to Wilkes-Barre over

1449-543: The Naviglio Grande built between 1127 and 1257 to connect Milan with the river Ticino . The Naviglio Grande is the most important of the lombard " navigli " and the oldest functioning canal in Europe. Later, canals were built in the Netherlands and Flanders to drain the polders and assist transportation of goods and people. Canal building was revived in this age because of commercial expansion from

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1518-545: The Phoenix metropolitan area was the most complex in ancient North America. A portion of the ancient canals has been renovated for the Salt River Project and now helps to supply the city's water. The Sinhalese constructed the 87 km (54 mi) Yodha Ela in 459 A.D. as a part of their extensive irrigation network which functioned in a way of a moving reservoir due to its single banking aspect to manage

1587-528: The River Brue at Northover with Glastonbury Abbey , a distance of about 1.75 kilometres (1,900 yd). Its initial purpose is believed to be the transport of building stone for the abbey, but later it was used for delivering produce, including grain, wine and fish, from the abbey's outlying properties. It remained in use until at least the 14th century, but possibly as late as the mid-16th century. More lasting and of more economic impact were canals like

1656-614: The Songhai Empire of West Africa, several canals were constructed under Sunni Ali and Askia Muhammad I between Kabara and Timbuktu in the 15th century. These were used primarily for irrigation and transport. Sunni Ali also attempted to construct a canal from the Niger River to Walata to facilitate conquest of the city but his progress was halted when he went to war with the Mossi Kingdoms . Around 1500–1800

1725-759: The Union Canal , which started in Reading and ended in Middletown . By 1834, the Main Line of Public Works, a system of interlocking canals, railways, and inclined planes , was hauling passengers and freight up to 391 miles (629 km) between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Though not all in concurrent operation, the total length of the canals built in Pennsylvania eventually reached 1,243 miles (2,000 km). By 1840, work had been completed not only on

1794-805: The Wright's Ferry landing in Columbia, Pennsylvania , was overtaken by technological events. Instead of pouring money into building a ditch, permission was sought by the investors to use its 82-mile (132 km) right of way to replace it in the "main line of works" scheme by a railway, a new developing technology, which resulted in the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (1834). Since they were built above ground, railways were easier and cheaper to build, since no ditches needed to be dug with human muscle power , nor did they require feed waters to be located and aqueducts built to provide them. The plan also included

1863-556: The reservoirs built at Girnar in 3000 BC. This is the first time that such planned civil project had taken place in the ancient world. In Egypt , canals date back at least to the time of Pepi I Meryre (reigned 2332–2283 BC), who ordered a canal built to bypass the cataract on the Nile near Aswan . In ancient China , large canals for river transport were established as far back as the Spring and Autumn period (8th–5th centuries BC),

1932-404: The stratum the canal passes through, it may be necessary to line the cut with some form of watertight material such as clay or concrete. When this is done with clay, it is known as puddling . Canals need to be level, and while small irregularities in the lie of the land can be dealt with through cuttings and embankments, for larger deviations other approaches have been adopted. The most common

2001-471: The 12th century. River navigations were improved progressively by the use of single, or flash locks . Taking boats through these used large amounts of water leading to conflicts with watermill owners and to correct this, the pound or chamber lock first appeared, in the 10th century in China and in Europe in 1373 in Vreeswijk , Netherlands. Another important development was the mitre gate , which was, it

2070-472: The 15th century, either flash locks consisting of a single gate were used or ramps, sometimes equipped with rollers, were used to change the level. Flash locks were only practical where there was plenty of water available. Locks use a lot of water, so builders have adopted other approaches for situations where little water is available. These include boat lifts , such as the Falkirk Wheel , which use

2139-794: The L&;S and Lehigh Valley, the CNJ forwarded traffic from the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W) in New Jersey . This complex state of affairs was upset in 1868 when the DL&;W leased the Morris and Essex, giving it direct access to the Delaware River and undermining the CNJ's position. The CNJ responded on March 31, 1871, by leasing the L&S. This gave the CNJ direct access to

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2208-481: The L&S south from White Haven to Easton, on the Delaware River. Regular passenger service to Easton began on February 3, 1868. New bridges over the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers on March 16 completed the line into Phillipsburg, New Jersey , with connections to the Belvidere Delaware Railroad , Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ), and Morris and Essex Railroad . With the completion of

2277-729: The L&S, the Easton- Phillipsburg area of the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania became a major rail hub. The Lehigh Valley Railroad ran along the south side of the Lehigh River and then across the Delaware. The CNJ and Morris and Essex handled its coal traffic between Easton and New York. The L&S ran parallel to the Lehigh Valley, north of the river. In addition to its connections with

2346-643: The Lehigh and LH&S or eventual LH&S cut over 100 miles (160 km) off the trip, including a similar distance saving Philadelphia to Pittsburgh via Pitston Landing 's canal docks. The first three tunnels of any kind in the US were built in support of the Allegheny Portage Railway, and all of them were converted to railroad tunnels. The canal era began in Pennsylvania in 1797 with

2415-646: The Main Line Canal from the state. In 1859, all canals owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were sold. The PRR formed the Pennsylvania Canal Company in 1867 and continued to use canals to haul freight. The canal business, however, declined steadily in the last quarter of the 19th century, and most Pennsylvania canals no longer functioned after 1900. The state funded the following canals in Pennsylvania. For interstate canals,

2484-864: The Main Line of Public Works but on many other lines, officially called "divisions". The Main Line consisted of the Eastern Division, the Juniata Division, the Western Division, the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad , and the Allegheny Portage Railroad . North–south divisions operated along the Delaware River in the east, the Susquehanna River in the middle of the state, and the Beaver River in

2553-604: The Pennsylvania Canal was designed to create a canal system that was capable of carrying heavy ships carrying bulk goods , connecting the major metropolitan cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh , and reaching the new growth markets in the developing Northwest Territory over the Ohio River , now known as the Midwestern United States . The Pennsylvania Canal was updated in 1837 to reflect

2622-590: The Persian Empire in Europe . Greek engineers were also among the first to use canal locks , by which they regulated the water flow in the Ancient Suez Canal as early as the 3rd century BC. There was little experience moving bulk loads by carts, while a pack-horse would [i.e. 'could'] carry only an eighth of a ton. On a soft road a horse might be able to draw 5/8ths of a ton. But if

2691-785: The Southwest by 1300 CE. Archaeologists working at a major archaeological dig in the 1990s in the Tucson Basin, along the Santa Cruz River, identified a culture and people that may have been the ancestors of the Hohokam. This prehistoric group occupied southern Arizona as early as 2000 BCE, and in the Early Agricultural period grew corn, lived year-round in sedentary villages, and developed sophisticated irrigation canals. The large-scale Hohokam irrigation network in

2760-436: The canal pressure with the influx of water. It was also designed as an elongated reservoir passing through traps creating 66 mini catchments as it flows from Kala Wewa to Thissa Wawa . The canal was not designed for the quick conveying of water from Kala Wewa to Thissa Wawa but to create a mass of water between the two reservoirs, which would in turn provided for agriculture and the use of humans and animals. They also achieved

2829-418: The canal to form a dam. They are generally placed in pre-existing grooves in the canal bank. On more modern canals, "guard locks" or gates were sometimes placed to allow a section of the canal to be quickly closed off, either for maintenance, or to prevent a major loss of water due to a canal breach. A canal fall , or canal drop, is a vertical drop in the canal bed. These are built when the natural ground slope

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2898-462: The canal. Where large amounts of goods are loaded or unloaded such as at the end of a canal, a canal basin may be built. This would normally be a section of water wider than the general canal. In some cases, the canal basins contain wharfs and cranes to assist with movement of goods. When a section of the canal needs to be sealed off so it can be drained for maintenance stop planks are frequently used. These consist of planks of wood placed across

2967-469: The channel. There are two broad types of canal: Historically, canals were of immense importance to commerce and the development, growth and vitality of a civilization. In 1855 the Lehigh Canal carried over 1.2 million tons of anthracite coal; by the 1930s the company which built and operated it for over a century ceased operation. The few canals still in operation in our modern age are a fraction of

3036-582: The coal fields in the Wyoming Valley . In 1963, the Reading Company , which had a controlling interest in the CNJ, purchased the L&S from the LC&;N. Under the agreement, the LC&N would continue to receive the lease payments from the CNJ for 35 years, at which point they would revert to the Reading. But the CNJ entered bankruptcy in 1967 and stopped the lease payments. The Lehigh Valley

3105-399: The drop follows an s-shaped curve to create a smooth transition and reduce turbulence . However, this smooth transition does not dissipate the water's kinetic energy, which leads to heavy scouring. As a result, the canal needs to be reinforced with concrete or masonry to protect it from eroding. Another type of canal fall is the vertical fall, which is "simple and economical". These feature

3174-680: The experience of twelve years of toddler-railways, The term was also applied to railroads and new canals to be added to the state transportation system. The Main Line of Public Works and the Pennsylvania Canal system topped 2,100 feet (640 m) in elevation by erecting the Allegheny Portage Railroad , which used a system of five inclines and five planes on each side of the Eastern Continental Divide at Cresson Pass in Cambria County to actually haul wheeled flat cars, which had halved canal boats placed on them, up and over

3243-670: The first summit level canal to use pound locks in Europe was the Briare Canal connecting the Loire and Seine (1642), followed by the more ambitious Canal du Midi (1683) connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. This included a staircase of 8 locks at Béziers , a 157 metres (515 ft) tunnel, and three major aqueducts. Canal building progressed steadily in Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries with three great rivers,

3312-402: The freedom to make deliveries well away from rail lined road beds or ditches in the dirt which could not operate in the winter. The longest extant canal today, the Grand Canal in northern China, still remains in heavy use, especially the portion south of the Yellow River . It stretches from Beijing to Hangzhou at 1,794 kilometres (1,115 miles). Canals are built in one of three ways, or

3381-400: The higher waters of the Charles River and the mouth of the Neponset River and the sea. It was constructed in 1639 to provide water power for mills. In Russia, the Volga–Baltic Waterway , a nationwide canal system connecting the Baltic Sea and Caspian Sea via the Neva and Volga rivers, was opened in 1718. Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad The company was founded in 1837 for

3450-401: The listed mileage is for the Pennsylvania portion only. Private entities, including foreign investors, funded the following canals in Pennsylvania. For interstate canals, the listed mileage is for the Pennsylvania portion only. Several canal segments or other canal infrastructure in Pennsylvania are listed on the National Register of Historic Places . One complete canal, the Delaware Canal ,

3519-422: The load were carried by a barge on a waterway, then up to 30 tons could be drawn by the same horse. — technology historian Ronald W. Clark referring to transport realities before the industrial revolution and the Canal age . Hohokam was a society in the North American Southwest in what is now part of Arizona , United States, and Sonora , Mexico. Their irrigation systems supported the largest population in

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3588-412: The longest canal in the world today and the oldest extant one. It is 1,794 kilometres (1,115 mi) long and was built to carry the Emperor Yang Guang between Zhuodu ( Beijing ) and Yuhang ( Hangzhou ). The project began in 605 and was completed in 609, although much of the work combined older canals, the oldest section of the canal existing since at least 486 BC. Even in its narrowest urban sections it

3657-419: The longest one of that period being the Hong Gou (Canal of the Wild Geese), which according to the ancient historian Sima Qian connected the old states of Song, Zhang, Chen, Cai, Cao, and Wei. The Caoyun System of canals was essential for imperial taxation, which was largely assessed in kind and involved enormous shipments of rice and other grains. By far the longest canal was the Grand Canal of China , still

3726-412: The manufactories of the East. Provision was made in the later legislation to tie in and even extend privately built canals such as the Lehigh Canal , not technically part of the Pennsylvania Canal system, and link them and the state's infant railroads to the public system and add to its value. The canal linking Philadelphia to the Susquehanna River , the proposed Pennsylvania Canal from Philadelphia to

3795-506: The numbers that once fueled and enabled economic growth, indeed were practically a prerequisite to further urbanization and industrialization. For the movement of bulk raw materials such as coal and ores are difficult and marginally affordable without water transport. Such raw materials fueled the industrial developments and new metallurgy resulting of the spiral of increasing mechanization during 17th–20th century, leading to new research disciplines, new industries and economies of scale, raising

3864-400: The objective of transporting predominantly anthracite coal from the North Branch Division of the Pennsylvania Canal to the Lehigh Canal on the Lehigh River . The rail line was later extended to the confluence of the Lehigh and Delaware rivers in Easton, Pennsylvania . In 1976, the company was sold to Conrail . The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad was chartered on March 31, 1837. It

3933-411: The pre-railroad days of the industrial revolution, water transport was the gold standard of fast transportation. The first artificial canal in Western Europe was the Fossa Carolina built at the end of the 8th century under personal supervision of Charlemagne . In Britain, the Glastonbury Canal   is believed to be the first post-Roman canal and was built in the middle of the 10th century to link

4002-475: The privately funded Lehigh Canal in 1818, which improved water transport on the lower Lehigh River from Jim Thorpe to Easton at the confluence with the Delaware River via Allentown and Bethlehem . The Lehigh Canal enabled the first regular reliable supplies of anthracite coal to reach eastern manufactories and two canals built later by Pennsylvania stock companies, the Schuylkill Canal , which started in Philadelphia and ended in Port Carbon , and

4071-480: The standard of living for any industrialized society. Most ship canals today primarily service bulk cargo and large ship transportation industries, whereas the once critical smaller inland waterways conceived and engineered as boat and barge canals have largely been supplanted and filled in, abandoned and left to deteriorate, or kept in service and staffed by state employees, where dams and locks are maintained for flood control or pleasure boating. Their replacement

4140-399: The valley of the River Dee . Another option for dealing with hills is to tunnel through them. An example of this approach is the Harecastle Tunnel on the Trent and Mersey Canal . Tunnels are only practical for smaller canals. Some canals attempted to keep changes in level down to a minimum. These canals known as contour canals would take longer, winding routes, along which the land was

4209-425: The watershed of the Mississippi Valley towards the lands organized in the Northwest Territory . The goal of the enabling acts was to enhance commerce and lower transportation costs between east and west, better joining the trans-Allegheny region to the eastern seaboard; this was a commercially motivated act with an eye towards servicing the growing markets of the new fast growing western settlements (Midwest) to

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4278-493: The west. A few additions were completed after 1840. By 1850, steam engine technology had advanced to having the ability to produce locomotives with sufficient power to move freight, including bulk goods such as coal and grain, so railroads had already begun displacing canals as the preferred method of long-distance transportation, as they also offered speed. In 1852, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) began offering rail service from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and in 1857, it bought

4347-466: Was also expensive, as men expect compensation in the form of wages, room and board. This was because long-haul roads were unpaved, more often than not too narrow for carts, much less wagons, and in poor condition, wending their way through forests, marshy or muddy quagmires as often as unimproved but dry footing. In that era, as today, greater cargoes, especially bulk goods and raw materials , could be transported by ship far more economically than by land; in

4416-432: Was also in bankruptcy, but took over the CNJ's Pennsylvania operations in 1972, including the lease of the L&S. The distressed state of railroading in the Northeastern United States , epitomized by the 1970 bankruptcy of Penn Central , led to the passage of the 1973 Regional Rail Reorganization Act . The act transferred the properties of the bankrupt railroads to a new government-owned railroad, Conrail . The L&S

4485-458: Was an option in some cases, sometimes supplemented by other methods to deal with seasonal variations in flow. Where such sources were unavailable, reservoirs  – either separate from the canal or built into its course – and back pumping were used to provide the required water. In other cases, water pumped from mines was used to feed the canal. In certain cases, extensive "feeder canals" were built to bring water from sources located far from

4554-484: Was created to link the North Branch Division of the Pennsylvania Canal at Wilkes-Barre and the Lehigh Canal at White Haven . Construction of the railroad began in 1839 and was completed in 1841. The arduous 19.58-mile (31.51 km) route required the construction of a tunnel and three inclined planes , including the Ashley Planes . In 1862, flooding damaged the Lehigh Canal north of Mauch Chunk in present-day Jim Thorpe . The LC&N received permission to extend

4623-407: Was gradual, beginning first in the United States in the mid-1850s where canal shipping was first augmented by, then began being replaced by using much faster , less geographically constrained & limited, and generally cheaper to maintain railways . By the early 1880s, canals which had little ability to economically compete with rail transport, were off the map. In the next couple of decades, coal

4692-424: Was increasingly diminished as the heating fuel of choice by oil, and growth of coal shipments leveled off. Later, after World War I when motor-trucks came into their own, the last small U.S. barge canals saw a steady decline in cargo ton-miles alongside many railways, the flexibility and steep slope climbing capability of lorries taking over cargo hauling increasingly as road networks were improved, and which also had

4761-426: Was once used to describe linear features seen on the surface of Mars , Martian canals , an optical illusion. A navigation is a series of channels that run roughly parallel to the valley and stream bed of an unimproved river. A navigation always shares the drainage basin of the river. A vessel uses the calm parts of the river itself as well as improvements, traversing the same changes in height. A true canal

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