Lamb's Electric Mule

Centreboard Canalboats Likely to Follow It in Use on the Erie Canal.

For several weeks workmen have been setting poles and stringing steel cables on the Erie Canal at Black Rock, near Buffalo, preparatory to testing the value of electricity for towing canal boats in place of the historic mule. Richard Lamb, who devised the motor that is to be used, has been giving much time and attention to the work, and there is now no doubt that it will be ready by September 24, the date stipulated for the test.

It is provided in the contract between Mr. Lamb and the Niagara General Electric Company, upon whose order the trial section has been erected, that the boats must be moved at a six-mile-an-hour rate as a condition to the making of a final contract for further equipment of the canal with the cableways. No trouble is expected in reaching and maintaining the speed required, but there is some question in the minds of those who have given careful attention to canal navigation whether an ordinary canalboat can be propelled at a six-mile rate through a canal, whether by cable way or other device, without serious damage to the banks by the wash from the boat. Mr. Lamb says that in his opinion the models of the boats will gradually be changed to meet the new conditions, and that probably canal boats with “spoon-shaped” bows and metal bottoms will be used eventually.

In France, where the canal system is extensive and much more scientifically operated than here, it has been found by long continued experiment that the introduction of the spoonshaped bow renders much greater speed practicable, since boats constructed after this model tend to rise, or ride, the water at high speeds, instead of to plunge through it like boats of the American type. It has also been found by the French that covering the sides of canal boats and barges with oilcloth materially reduces the resistance. Boats so covered require smaller power for propulsion, in the ratio of 551 pounds, as compared with 782, required by boats not thus treated.

It is believed, further, that in time iron barges with centreboards will be used largely for lake navigation and that the barges will be of sufficiently light draft to make their towage through the canal feasible, reliance being placed upon the centreboard to render them seaworthy upon the lakes. The introduction of such craft would do away with the necessity of reloading at Buffalo, and grain or other freight could be sent in bulk from all points of shipment on the lakes to New York, and in the contrary direction, much more economically than by the present method of navigation or other transportation.

The use of the centreboard in other craft than yachts is not entirely novel, as it has already been employed in a lumber steamer, drawing three feet of water, that has to go over the shallow bars at the mouth of the White Oak river and out to sea. With the centreboard up, this boat draws but three feet of water. When the centreboard is down, according to Mr. Lamb, it has always proved efficient in keeping the boat from shearing in the waves.

It is understood that Mr. Tesla’s efforts to provide a method of transmitting electric power at long distances without great loss, which is essential to the success of the cableway system, are likely to prove quite satisfactory. Mr. Tesla’s scheme is simplicity itself, copper being used as the conductor, and loss of power being prevented by the employment of extraordinarily high voltage.

The importance of the trial of the Lamb cableway and of the propositions made by Mr. Lamb as to the modification in the build of canal boats is greatly increased by the fact that the people are to vote this fall upon the proposed appropriation of $9,000,000 for the purpose of increasing the depth of the canal two feet and otherwise improving it.