BARNARD, John Gross.

Report on the North Sea Canal of Holland; and on the Improvement of Navigation from Rotterdam to the Sea; to the Chief of Engineers, United States Army.

Twelve lithographed plates (all but one folding). 77 pp. Large 4to, orig. half-sheep & cloth (extremities a little worn), upper cover & spine lettered in gilt. Washington, G.P.O., 1872. First edition, Professional Papers of the Corps of Engineers of the United State Army, No. 22. Barnard (1815-82), a graduate of West Point, served on the corp of engineers and worked on many projects during a long and successful career. “In the second half of the 19th century two immense new ship canals were constructed in Holland to connect the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam with the North Sea. This account of them was written for the American Government by an engineer working on the Tehuantepec canal project, one of several isthmian schemes before the construction of the Panama Canal. The North Sea or Amsterdam Canal was built in 1865-76 by John Hawkshaw with the Dutch engineer, Dircks, as resident engineer. A ship canal only slightly smaller than the recently completed Suez canal, it was one of the most ambitious of the later 19th century civil engineering projects and superseded the North Holland Canal of 1819-25, itself the first modern ship canal... “Barnard gives a history of the scheme before going on to describe some of the principal works, particularly the immense locks at either end which isolated the canal from the waters of the North Sea and of the Zuider Zee. Of interest, too, is the account of the piers which protected the mouth of the canal from the sea. The foundations gave considerable trouble eventually solved by the use of riprap surmounted by large blocks (6 to 10 tons in weight) of Portland cement concrete put in place by overhanging travelling cranes known as Titans. The removal of spoil from the dredgers also taxed contemporary construction methods to the limit but this problem was overcome by a centrifugal pumping system designed and patented by the contractors... “The second project described here is the New Waterway built by the Dutch engineer, Caland, in 1866-72. It involved the widening of the channel of the Scheur and cutting across the Hook of Holland. Much of Barnard’s account is devoted to the provision and maintenance of an effective outfall for the new waterway achieved by two piers built into the North Sea and constructed in the traditional manner using fascines. One of the few English-language books to describe any of the great Dutch hydraulic works.”–Elton, Catalogue 11, 34. Very good copy. Ex Bibliotheca Mechanica.

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