Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Second part - XII. Shipping and Navigation - Canals, by Lieut. Col. P. Laurell, Stockholm, and Major G. Nerman, Uppsala
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CANALS.
955
was completed in 1640. When considering how undeveloped were the conditions
of the time, how both capacity and willingness to work were lacking, and how
there was no home-experience in this sort of work, one will feel obliged to
admire the determination with which these enterprises were undertaken, and the
perseverance and strength with which they were pursued to the end, in spite of
all reverses and difficulties of both economical and political kind. Builders from
Holland were called in, but strangers as they were to the natural conditions of
our country and the materials that must be used here, they were obliged to adapt
themselves to the circumstances; at the same time absolutely unpractised workmen
had to be used. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder that the work was
not up to the standard.
Lock at the Trollhättan Canal.
The new Hjelmare Canal had also to be thoroughly repaired only after a
couple of years. After thirty years of work, this reparation was finished, but
already fourteen years later (1686), the canal was again in a very bad state and
had to be rebuilt (1691/1701). This work was done more carefully than before,
but as yet knowledge and experience were not quite sufficient. Already in 1740
a thorough reparation proved necessary. The canal was with difficulty kept
open till 1770, when a complete reconstruction had to be done, which was
accomplished in 1776. The structure was improved, but remained unsatisfactory,
and already in 1814 it proved difficult to keep the canal open. Taking
advantage of the experience, gained when building the Göta Canal, a reconstruction
was finally commenced in 1819 and accomplished in 1829, that put the canal in
the comparatively lasting state in which it is now. This little history shows what
difficulties canal-building had to fight against, before, after centuries of efforts,
full insight in the most suitable methods was gained.
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