BY BOAT OVER THE ALPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 81

BY BOAT OVER THE ALPS.

ITALIAN. INVENTOR'S MARVELLOUS SCHEME FOR A CANAL. (See Illustrated Pages. )hlrS A short time ago it wa6 announced* that an Italian inventor had devised a scheme for crossing the Alps by means of a canal. The Times' Rome correspondent furnishes details of this extraordinary proposal. Were it not (he says) for the marvellous feats already performed by Italian engineers, the idea of connecting Genoa and Lake Constance by water and floating a barge over the Apennines and Alps themselves would sound too like an idle fairy tale to be worth consideration. But the plan, or rather the invention, of Signor Caminada has apparently won the support of Senator Columbo, a famous engineer himself and the president of the Polytechnic of Lombardy, and has already attracted the notice of "King Victor Emanuel and the Italian public. Without attempting an exact description of Signor Caminada's invention, it may yet be possible to give a rough idea of the principle underlying it. As every one knows, the ordinary method of floating shipping over an eminence is by a series of locks one higher than the other. Signor Caminada's locks, or Tather the Bpaoes between the gate of ingress and gate, of egress, will be inqlined tubular canals. For example, the waterway will reach its highest point at Isolata, in the Spulgen Pass ; the distance between Isolata and San Vittore, near Chiavenna, involves a rise of 960 metres. . This distance of some 16 kilometres will ■be traversed by a double line of parallel tubular canals,' each divided into 137 sections. The water descends through both, but crosses to each line alternately, so xhat, while a vessel descends with the sinking water in a section on one line, another vessel is rising with the rising water in a lower section of the other. These inclined tubular canals will be constructed of masonry, closed with iron gates. Signor Caminada claims, that his system ■will need a far smaller water supply than ■would be needed for the ordinary rising lock system, that it will naturally be more expeditious, and that it will be less subject to obstruction by ice, as the water •will never be sufficiently stagnant to be •frozen over in winter. He aLso says that ihe has assured himself of the sufficiency of the water supply, as far as crossing the Alp® is concerned, and that the supply an the Apennines, though less certain, can be assured by reservoirs at no very great expense. His plan seems to have gained the attention of very competent judges of its feasibility, so that a journey from Genoa to Basel by water may really be some day made possible.