Day #11: Rest Day in Sylvan Beach (A)

1. New York State and the Erie Canal

George Washington described New York State as the "seat of the empire," which may have led to its nickname, the "Empire State." The Erie Canal, connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic ocean, constructed by Irish diggers and German masons and completed in 1825 was known as the 8th wonder of the world. The canal catapulted New York City to become the business capital of the young nation.

The original canal, derided as "Clinton's Ditch" ran 363 miles and had 83 locks to allow barges to navigate an elevation difference of 565 ft. With the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the building of the Interstate highway system and trucking, the Erie Canal fell out of use. This was a blow to the cities that had grown rich along the canal: Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo. The modern canal has 35 locks and is mainly used for recreation.

Riding along the canal you feel this palpable connection to that earlier era of optimistic and headlong industry, where towns and mills and factories, dams and locks sprang up along the waterway. It's almost overwhelming to think of how much human effort went into all the construction. The drive to carry goods, apples, lumber, furs, to market in New York City and across the world was so strong. The canal allowed a first great migration of Europeans west to the Great Lakes. You can get swept up in the feeling of that inexorable pull to exploit this new land and harness its natural wealth regardless of the costs.

2. Locks on the Erie Canal

When a waterfall makes a river impossible for boats to navigate, engineers can build a lock which functions as a water elevator for the boats:

The locks of the modern Erie canal:

Side note #1: it was apparently Leonardo da Vinci who invented the mitered doors of the lock... as the water presses on them the seal gets tighter...

Side note #2: there's a forged picture that tried to claim that Leonardo also invented the bicycle, but this was debunked by analysis of the inks used in the forgery... however the following bike-like contraption was (I believe) really drawn by Leonardo sometime before 1519:

Over 300 years before Karl von Drais invented this in 1817: