Interesting facts about canals
1. The best examples of canals used for draining land are to be found in Holland, where much of the country is below sea level. Dams are used to prevent flooding and since 1932 over 300,000 acres of land have been drained. In winter the Dutch people use the frozen canals for ice-skating.
2. In a hot dry country such as Egypt water is scarce, and to prevent the land from becoming dry long canals are built from dams. These canals must be continually kept open, for the Egyptian farms and cotton fields can not exist without these life lines of water.
3. Many inland waterways are used for the transport of heavy goods by barges. This method of carrying materials is not so widely used now, for although it is cheaper, it has the disadvantage of being much slower. Speed is regulated by the number of bridges and locks which the barges encounter.
4. Two notable canals for ships in Europe are the Corinth Canal and the Kiel Canal. The former was built in 1893 across the solid rock of the Isthmus of Corinth. Bridges from the tops of the steep sides of the canal connect north and south Greece. The Kiel Canal, which also has no locks, was built two years later and it gives the countries of the Baltic Sea quicker access to the west.
5. Venice, at the Adriatic Sea, is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, for it has many canals instead of streets. Long narrow boats with curved ends, called ‘gondolas’, carry passengers and goods from one part of the city to another. The gondolas are supplied with lanterns, which at night make the canals very colourful and romantic. A peculiar custom of former days was that the Ruler of Venice used to throw a ring into the water each year to show that the city was wed to the sea.
6. One of the greatest arteries of world trade is the Suez Canal separating the two continents of Asia and Africa. As trade with India increased, the overland route across Suez became regular but very expensive. In 1859, the French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, started to cut a passage through this flat desert country. Ten years later, the first sea-going ships passed through the canal, which is a hundred miles long and has no locks, thus completing a direct water route from the North Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. The journey along the canal takes about fifteen hours and shortens the distance from Britain to the East by about 4,000 miles. The canal belongs to Egypt and is a vital waterway serving the merchant fleets of many nations.
7. The Great Lakes which lie between Canada and the United States have become parts of the world’s ocean highways for it is now possible for big ships to sail up the Saint Lawrence Canal to the ports of Toronto, Cleveland and Chicago. A 218 mile canal joins the Atlantic with these Great Lakes which contain half of all the fresh water in the world. There are seven locks, five on the Canadian side and two on the United States side. Bridges needed to be raised fifty feet to allow big ship traffic to pass and, indeed, from Montreal, these ocean-going vessels are raised 246 feet above the sea level to Lake Ontario. The Saint Lawrence Canal takes the ships 2,200 miles inland, half-way across the North American continent and deep into the heart of Canada.
8. The construction of a major canal, 290 miles long, linking the rivers Volga and Ural irrigates the steppe lands between them. The first 140-mile stage of the canal was completed in 1979 and the second stage in 1985. The final stage of the canal irrigation system was only put into operation when the Volga started receiving some of the water from the Northern Pechora River, which flows into the Arctic. The Volga-Ural Canal enables hundreds of small lakes in West Kazakhstan which dry up in the summer to receive water supplies, and it is thus intended to create a substantial fish breeding zone there.
Exercise 2 Answer the following questions.
1. What are dams in Holland used for? 2. Why aren’t barges so widely used now? 3. When was the Corinth Canal built? 4. When was the Kiel Canal built? 5. What makes Venice one of the most beautiful cities in Europe? 6. What peculiar custom existed in Venice? 7. When was the Suez Canal opened for navigation? 8. Who built the Suez Canal? 9. Do the Great Lakes contain fresh or salt water? 10. Can ocean-going ships travel along the Saint Lawrence Canal?