How To Keep The Canals Open

a correspondent oí tne tocnester Uemocrat write8 as follows : " The value of any plan that would enable boats to move for even a few days longer than the ordinary period can hardly be exaggerated- the 500 boats now frozen in between Albany and Buffalo, all of which could reach their destination in another week of fine weather, prove it. I have given the subject some thought, and desire to snbmit a plan that is more practical than some that have been propused, and is far ahead of anything in use. It is thia : I would place a gang of circular saws on a shaft in front of a scow, and aboard the latter have a six or eight horse-power sleain engine to work the saws. The scow would be drawn by horses, and the saws would out their way through the ice as fast as the horses could walk. Ice chisels should also be operated by the engine to split the cakes of ice between the saws. Whoever has seen the speed with which ice a foot tbick can be cut by hand will have no doubt of the ability of a steam engine to keep a, channel the width of a boat clear of twoinch ice at trifling cost. The saving that would be effected by enabling one neet of boats to reach the Hudson would more than pay for apparatus enough to keep the canal open a month longer than it has ever been navigable."