| Multiply | By | To obtain |
|---|---|---|
| inches | 25.4 | millimeters |
| feet | .3048 | meters |
| yards | .9144 | meters |
| miles | 1.609 | kilometers |
| cubic feet | 28.32 | cubic meters |
| cubic yards | .7646 | cubic meters |
| tons (short) | .9072 | tonnes |
A structure built to convey the canal across a stream. The canal in the aqueduct crossing was reduced in width as in a lock to that required for the passage of a single boat.Berm (Berme) bank.
That embankment of the canal opposite the towpath embankment. In the original Erie Canal, the berm bank was 5 feet wide at the crest, the towpath bank 10 feet wide. (U.S. usage.)Bypass weirs.
The water discharged down a canal in lockages, together with gate leakage, was not enough to furnish adequate water for canal losses. Hence, each lock was equipped with a weir whose crest was at the water level of the upper pound and which led to a channel around the lock to the lower pound. The bypass weir, usually on the berm bank side, kept the canal from overflowing the locks.Combined locks.
A staircase of lock chambers without intervening pounds. The upper gate of one chamber is the lower gate of the chamber next above, and so on. Culvert (see also "paddle"). A structure built to convey a stream under a canal embankment.Paddle.Locks in the original canal are shown in plan on figure. 7, and listed in the ,Section on "Feeders, locks, and stream crossings." Lock chambers needed to be of about the same volume, in order that water discharged from the higher into the lower pound would equal that needed to fill the lower lock and so on.
Movable shutter for admitting or draining water from the locks. On the original Erie Canal, the paddles were slide valves on each leaf of the miter gates, a type called gate paddles. Valves installed in pipes passing around the gates, a feature of later built canals, are called culvert paddles.Pound.
The "level" or reach between locks. The term "pound" conveys the idea that the canal reach contains water impounded by the lock gates. The pound reaches were therefore important in storing and conserving water. If pounds were too short, then emptying or filling lock chambers resulted in considerable variations in water level and required either release of water from upstream to maintain navigation depth or resulted in spill over the waste weirs to discharge excess water.Side cut.According to the Commissioners (Report dated 27 Feb. 1822, p. 11), the design sought was to space locks so that pound reaches were at least 40 rods (660 feet) long, not only to save water but so as to "prevent injurious delays in the passage of boats." In this case, the volume of water in, a single locking would not result in a change in water level of more than 6 inches.
Nevertheless, short pounds existed in the long tier of locks in the reach between Albany and Schenectady (see fig. 3); Jervis (1877, p. 52) refers to his efforts to correct the lock spacing there during the enlargements begun in 1836.
A lateral canal connecting a canal with some adjacent river, stream or canal.Widewater; wind.Waste weirs were installed along the course of the canal, where it crossed a natural drainage course, at a level somewhat above the operating level of the canal. These weirs, usually 20-50 feet long, were installed to discharge flood waters that might enter the canal from the many small runnels that led into it, and from hillside drainage. They would also come into operation whenever the inflow into the canal from the feeders was in excess of the capacity of the canal and the bypass weirs at the locks.
A widened stretch of Canal to permit barges to pass, turn about, or lay by. Basins were widewaters constructed with docks to serve as harbors.