Mr. BARNES. Yes, sir; they have got to stop and lock through. The other difference is you will have a narrow, restricted channel for the 230 miles, or most of the distance, whereas now with 10,000 feet flow we have a channel of 1,000 feet width and upward, and you have a much greater depth under the keel which will cheapen the cost of navigation, as pointed out by the Federal engineers on the Hudson River.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Barnes, you do not for one instant contend you need any width of 1,000, as an engineer?

Mr. BARNES. As an engineer I can say that a width of 1,000 feet would give you cheaper navigation than 150 or 200 feet width that you would have with 1,000 feet flow in the Illinois River.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the width of Ambrose Channel? Mr. BARNES. The width of Ambrose Channel is 2,000 feet. The CHAIRMAN. What is the width of the channel at Norfolk? Mr. BARNES. I do not know; it is considerably less than that. The CHAIRMAN. What is the width of the channel at San Francisco?

Mr. BARNES. I do not know.

The CHAIRMAN. Two hundred feet, is it not?

Mr. BARNES. Well, I was thinking 250, but you may be right. The CHAIRMAN. There is scarcely, unless it is in the case of New York City, a waterway in the whole United States for ocean-going vessels where there has been artificial improvement where the channel is 1,000 feet wide; is not that true?

Mr. BARNES. I want to call your attention, Mr. Chairman, to the fact that we are not building the waterway for ocean-going vessels. The CHAIRMAN. I know it, but I say even with ocean-going vessels there is perhaps but one channel which has been artificially improved which has that width.

Mr. BARNES. But that distance is about 7 or 8 or 10 miles, whereas we are asking to improve 300 or 400 miles in length.

The CHAIRMAN. Which makes it all the worse.

Mr. BARNES. Which makes it all the worse for your narrow channel, if that narrow channel was 400 miles in length.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the width of the improved channel in the Mississippi River?

Mr. BARNES. At what point?

The CHAIRMAN. At any point of the improved channel. What is the average width of the improved channel?

Mr. BARNES. It runs from about 600 feet at the upper end down to 2,000 or 3,000 feet in width at the lower end.

The CHAIRMAN. How far is the 2,000 or 3,000 feet-over 10 miles? Mr. BARNES. The Federal engineers in this report that I have referred to say that with that 10,000 feet of water from Lake Michigan that they will have 1,100 feet channel above the mouth of the Missouri River.

The CHAIRMAN. How wide a channel would you have with 1,000 feet and the necessary locks? How wide a channel would you have? Mr. BARNES. Well, I do not know as I understand your question, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. How wide would your channel be, suppose you spent your $30,000,000 and had your necessary locks?

Mr. BARNES. We would ask for locks 110 feet wide, and I should imagine that canal would probably be 200 feet in width.

The CHAIRMAN. Would you not consider that absolutely sufficient for all purposes of anticipated_navigation?

Mr. BARNES. No, sir: I would not.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the width of your vessels?

Mr. BARNES. The width we are providing for in our locks is 110 feet. The width they are using in the Mississippi River-Warrior service is something like 140 feet and upward. They are transporting something like 250,000 tons to a fleet, but we do not want. to cut down that capacity by small locks or small canals up the Illinois River.

The CHAIRMAN. I call your attention, Mr. Barnes, to the report of the engineers for 1923, page 1080. This is on the Mississippi River between the Ohio and the Missouri Rivers. This provides for obtaining and maintaining a minimum channel depth of 8 feet at low water from the mouth of the Ohio River to St. Louis, 183 miles, 6 feet thence to the mouth of the Missouri, 17 miles, with a minimum width of channel of 200 feet. Of course, your minimum is your controlling use. All our project provides for on the Mississippi River is 200 feet. What is it below that? Mr. HULL. 300 feet below that.

Mr. BARNES. You must recognize that those are the passovers, so-called, in the Mississippi River. My recollection is that there are seven of those passovers requiring almost constant excavation by the Federal Government with their fleets of dredges. That is not the controlling width. That is the controlling width at those points and fleets can not meet or pass at those points, but at any other point in that one hundred and seventy and odd miles-————▬▬▬ The CHAIRMAN. One hundred and eighty-three miles.

Mr. BARNES (continuing). Boats can meet and pass, because the width is much greater.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me call your attention to the project below Cairo, and I call your attention to the same report at page 1861. The existing project is to maintain a channel not less than 9 feet deep and not less than 250 feet wide from the mouth of the Ohio River to the Head of the Passes near the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of 1,065 miles. Now let us take the Ohio River and see what the project is there.

Mr. BARNES. If you will be referred to the report of the Mississippi-Warrior service

The CHAIRMAN. You say there would not be any advantage in giving the Illinois River, which is comparatively a small river when you contrast it with the Ohio and the Mississippi

Mr. HULL. It is larger than the Ohio River.

The CHAIRMAN. In what sense?

Mr. HULL. In every sense.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you mean?

Mr. HULL. I mean it is wider and it is deeper.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, it does not have the general volume of

water.

Mr. HULL. I think it does.

The CHAIRMAN. Nothing like the same volume of water, and it does not feed the same territory and has not the same tributaries. The Ohio River has probably 12 or 13 great tributaries.

Mr. HULL. I think you will find that excepting flood time the Illinois River is more of a navigable stream than the Ohio River. Am I right or not, Mr. Barnes?

Mr. BARNES. You are right.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, the Ohio River is not alone itself important, but it has a large number of tributaries that are important, and so through these tributaries as well as through its own length of, I think about 1,000 miles, it feeds a vast country and leads up to the Monongahela, which has 25,000,000 tons of traffic.

Mr. HULL. Can I ask one question right in there in reference to the sewage proposition? Is it not your opinion that with the locks out we will be in much better condition as far as our sanitary part of this thing is concerned than we would with the locks in, because of the fact the locks would hold the sewage at different places? Mr. BARNES. There might be a certain amount of sediment right at the locks.

Mr. HULL. And it would back up.

Mr. BOYCE. How about the flooding conditions with the locks out? Mr. HULL. He brought that out before you came in. He said it would decrease the level of the river 2 feet.

Mr. BARNES. At low water.

Mr. HULL. In other words, what I was trying to bring out is that if we can get a channel down that river without these locks then we will do away with a great deal of trouble with our sanitary part of it, and it will give us a navigable stream that we want.

Mr. BOYCE. Do I understand that you could get rid of the locks with more water from the lake?

Mr. HULL. That is one way.

Mr. BOYCE. Also by a deeper channel in the river?

Mr. HULL. Yes.

Mr. BARNES. But you must have water then.

Mr. BOYCE. The deepening of the channel would not necessarily require a greater quantity of water from the lakes, would it?

Mr. BARNES. You can deepen the channel and get the same depth that we have, say with 10,000 feet of flow, but the controversy I am in now with the chairman is that it is much more expensive and not as valuable a canal after you get it.

The CHAIRMAN. That is, the differences are these: You say that, first, you would have to lock your commerce through four locks; and second, you would be obliged to be restricted to a channel only 200 feet wide. Those are the two differences, are they not, Mr. Barnes? - Mr. BARNES. Those are two of the differences.

The CHAIRMAN. They are the two differences you have so far specified.

Mr. BARNES. No; I specified also that it would be much more expensive.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; that of course we will concede.

Mr. HULL. I do not want to leave it that way, Mr. Dempsey. There are other reasons to my knowledge why these locks ought not to be put in, and I want you to express yourself just as you want to. This channel with the locks out is, I would say, 50 per cent better as a transportation problem than with them in.

Mr. BARNES. I do not know what the percentage would be, but very much better. These locks would probably stop every fleet of

boats at least two hours in the transportation; and if they must pass small locks, as you have now, it would be much longer, the fleet being required to break up, and the time required for that and to unite the fleet.

Mr. MANSFIELD. And the cost of maintaining and operating the locks.

Mr. BARNES. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Take the Ohio River, they have 52 locks there in that project.

Mr. BARNES. Thirty-seven completed, and six additional over 50 per cent completed on the average.

Mr. MANSFIELD, Mr. Barnes, you said a few moments ago, and Mr. Hull reiterated it, that these locks were obsolete, all four of them.

The CHAIRMAN. The present locks you mean?

Mr. BARNES. They are old style, inadequate in size, and slow in operation.

Mr. MANSFIELD. Can you tell me when they were built?

Mr. BARNES. The Government-built locks and dams were completed in 1889 and 1893.

Mr. MANSFIELD. And the State built theirs when?

Mr. BARNES. The lock and dam at Copperas Creek was completed. in 1877 at a cost of $347,747, and the lock and dam at Henry was completed before that date at a cost of about $400,000.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Barnes, have you ever been down on the Ohio River to observe how long it takes a barge to lock through one of those locks?

Mr. BARNES. I have. Of course, it has been different times for different-sized fleets. If one barge, it is one time; if two barges, it is another time; if a whole fleet of barges, it is still a longer time. The CHAIRMAN. How long did it take, if you recollect, for a barge to get through one of those locks on the Ohio River, because that is the same kind of navigation you are advocating?

Mr. BARNES, I am not advocating for one barge.

The CHAIRMAN. I will give it to you for the others later. Take one at a time.

Mr. BARNES. It takes from 7 to 10 minutes to fill your lock; it takes about a minute to open the gates. Then there is the checking up and getting up speed again, which usually takes from 15 to 45 minutes. Look at the records of the Soo Canal, and you will find that given in great detail.

The CHAIRMAN. But there you have a different proposition of a much larger boat.

Mr. BARNES. Yes; but only one boat.

Mr. MANSFIELD. And then the consumption of fuel in starting and stopping?

Mr. BARNES. Yes.

Mr. HULL. I know you have a wonderful line of information and I want you to give it to these men. I want to ask one question while it is on my mind. If we have the 10,000 cubic feet of water, as we practically have now, it will assist in the Mississippi River to the extent of at least 2 or 3 feet.

Mr. BARNES. I can say it in a different way. The Federal engineers say it will give a 100 feet wide channel between the mouth of the Illinois River and the Missouri River.

Mr. HULL. What about the depth?

Mr. BARNES. They would have the same depths with different widths.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Barnes, there is plenty of water in the Mississippi River to take care of the channel if the proper channel is obtained.

Mr. BARNES. It will take care of a channel, but the width depends upon the amount of water you have got.

The CHAIRMAN. Here is a project with a width of 200 feet part of the way and of 250 feet the balance of the way. There is plenty of water in that river to take care of that channel if it is obtained, is there not?

Mr. HULL. You mean at low-water time?

The CHAIRMAN. At any time.

Mr. BARNES. Yes; 250 feet is minimum width at the shoals, which the Government is maintaining with a fleet of dredges; one is 200 feet, another is 250 feet, another is 150 feet.

The CHAIRMAN. The difficulty at those seven shallow places is that the shoals have not been cleaned out, and the channel at that point obtained.

Mr. BARNES. No; the reasons that they can not keep them open at those crossovers is that they are constantly filling up. It means a constant maintenance with a fleet of dredges.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; but it is still true that if you do excavate those shoal places and have the channel there is sufficient water to fill the channel to the projected depth.

Mr. BARNES. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. That is all I am trying to bring out.

Mr. HULL. I want to bring out another question in rebuttal to that. If we had the 10,000 feet flow you would not have near the dredging that you have to do when you haven't it?

Mr. BARNES. No; you would not have to do so much excavating. The CHAIRMAN. That would depend simply on the shoals. If we left the shoaling alone and piled in there 20,000 cubic feet it would shoal to the surface of the water, would it not?

Mr. BARNES. No; that is not the experience you have with high waters and flood waters in the Mississippi River. The bottom comes up about one-half the height of the top.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not get the latter part of that.

Mr. BARNES. The bottom rises about one-half as much as the top rises. If your stage rises 2 feet the bottom rises 1 foot. That is about the average. So the more water you have, the more depth you will have in your river.

The CHAIRMAN. That is true, but I say if you neglect your shoaling long enough it will come up and overcome any depth of water. Mr. BARNES. No; that has not been their experience. Their experience has been it only comes up one-half as much as the water rises on the surface.

Mr. BOYCE. Would greater quantity of water tend to cut away the shoals?