asked itself, and on June 29, 1918, it decided to build the lock with a 30-foot depth over the sill at extreme low water, and make the canal 300 feet wide at the top, and 150 feet wide at the bottom.

To do this, would cost about $1,000,000 more, it was estimated by George M. Wells of the Goethals company—a sum which the Dock Board thought would be realized from the rental-revenues of Doullut & Williams and the Foundation Company, without increasing the second bond issue.

This is the Canal that was finally built—nearly 70 per cent larger than the one that was begun and about 100 per cent larger than the one originally planned, when the newspapers and forward-looking told the people that the lack of such a canal had cost New Orleans millions of dollars in development.

DIGGING THE DITCH.

No rock-problem was encountered in dredging the canal. The cost was below what the engineers estimated it would be—less than thirty cents a cubic yard. But a novel situation did develop; a condition that would have sent the cost sky-rocketing if an Orleanian had not met the difficulty.

Louisiana is what geologists call a region of subsidence. The gulf of Mexico formerly reached to where Cairo, Ill., now is. Washings from the land, during the slow-moving centuries, pushed the shoreline ever outward; the humus of decaying vegetation raised the ground surface still higher. This section of Louisiana, built by the silt of the Mississippi, was of course the most recent formation.

Twenty thousand years ago, say the geologists, there were great forests where Louisiana now is. Among these mighty trees roamed the glyptodont; the 16-foot armadillo with a tail like the morning-star of the old crusaders, monstrously magnified; the giraffe camel; the titanothere; the Columbian elephant, about the size of a trolley car and with 15-foot tusks; the giant sloth which could look into a second-story window; here the saber-toothed tiger fought with the megatherium; mighty rhinoceroses sloshed their clumsy way, and huge and grotesque birds filled the air with their flappings.

As the subsoil packed more solidly, this wilderness in time sunk beneath the waters. The Mississippi built up its sandbars again, storms shaped them above the waves, marsh grass raised the surface with its humus, and another forest grew. This, in turn, sunk. And so the process was repeated, time after time.

At different depths below the surface of the ground the remains of these forests are found today, the wood perfectly preserved by the dampness. And through this tangled mass the dredges had to fight their way.

It was a task too great for the ordinary type of 20 or 22-inch suction dredge, even with the strength of 1,000 horses behind it. When they met these giant stumps and trunks they just stopped.

A. B. Wood, of the sewerage and water department, had already designed and patented a centrifugal pump impeller adapted to the handling of sewerage containing trash. Learning of this, W. J. White, superintendent of dredging on the Canal, asked him to design a special impeller, along similar lines, for the dredge Texas.

Results from the invention were remarkable. During the thirty days immediately preceding the installation the dredge had suffered delays from clogged suction which totalled 130-3/4 hours. During the thirty days immediately succeeding installation the total of delays for the same reason was cut down to 71-1/2 hours. The average yardage was, for the earlier period, 152 an hour, of actual excavation; and for the later period, 445 an hour—an increase of almost 200 per cent. The situation had been met.

This was the period when the cost of labor and material began to jump. Employers were bidding against each other for men, and the government's work practically fixed the price of supplies.

George M. Wells, consulting engineer, in his report of December 9, 1918, to the Dock Board, summarized labor increases over the scale when the work was begun, as follows: Unskilled labor, 54%; pile driver men, 40%; machinists, 40%; blacksmiths, 40%; foremen and monthly, 15 to 40%—an average increase of 40%. Materials had advanced, he went on to show, as follows: Gravel, 72%; sand, 25%; cement, 10%; lumber (form), 70%; timber, 40%; piles, untreated, 40%; piles, treated, 25%. These increases, together with the expansion of the plans requiring a canal of maximum depth, instead of the pilot cut of fifteen feet, as originally planned; the insistence of the Levee Board that levees in the back areas must be raised to elevation 30; development of unforeseen and unforeseeable quicksand conditions in the various excavations; requirements of railroads for bridges of greater capacity and strength than needed; building of a power line to the Foundation Company's plant—not a Dock Board job, but one that the conditions required it should finance then; and other expenses, besides delaying the work, made another bond issue necessary to finish the job.

At its meeting of February 26, 1919, President Thompson laid the matter before the board. It decided to issue $6,000,000 of bonds, for which the same syndicate of bankers that had taken the other two offered 96. Liberty bonds were then selling at a big discount, and this seemed the best terms on which the money could be secured.

This gave a total issue of $12,000,000 to date, the interest on which amounted to $600,000 a year. The Levee Board raised its share of the "rental" to $550,000, to guarantee the interest; the Public Belt Railroad's $50,000 made the total complete.

In the meantime ships were beginning to bulk large on the ways of the Foundation and the Doullut & Williams yards. The Foundation company launched its first, the Gauchy—a 4,200-ton non-sinkable steel ship, built for the French government—in September, 1919; and the Doullut & Williams company launched its first, the New Orleans, a steel vessel of 9,600 tons, the largest turned out south of Newport News, built for the Shipping Board, in January, 1920. These were followed by four sister vessels from the Foundation yard and seven from the Doullut & Williams plant. The former went to sea through Bayou Bienvenu and the latter through Lake Pontchartrain. The Doullut & Williams yard is a large one. Originally planning a mere assembling yard, the Foundation Company had subsequently developed the greatest steel fabricating plant in the South—so confident it was that New Orleans would carry through the project.

And, too, the New Orleans Army Supply Base that Uncle Sam was building on the river end of the Industrial Canal was rapidly rising—the facility that was to double the port storage capacity of New Orleans when it was finally completed in June, 1919.

The canal is 5-1/3 miles long. Between river and lock the canal prism will be 125 feet wide at the bottom and 275 feet at the top; between the lock and the lake, 150 feet wide at the bottom and 300 feet wide at the top. It is an excavation job of 10,000,000 cubic yards. Five hundred thousand flat cars would be required to carry that dirt—a train more than 4,000 miles long.

By September, 1919, the canal had been entirely dredged, except for the 2,000-foot channel between the lock and river, which must be left until the last, to a width of about 150 feet and a depth of 26 feet. Since then, the labor has been concentrated upon the lock. But twenty-six feet will float a vessel carrying 6,000 bales of cotton. Full dimensions, however, will be developed, and the Canal, with a system of laterals and basins such as are found in Europe, will be an Inner Harbor capable of indefinite expansion.

OVERWHELMING ENDORSEMENT BY NEW ORLEANS.

When the Canal was about half finished it received the most tremendous endorsement by every interest of New Orleans in its history. The question was put squarely before the people: "Do you think it is a good thing, and you are willing to be taxed to put it across, and, if so, how much?"