Hes going to go ahead and start pulling us in. Back then what they would do is theyd have their mules kecked to their boat and the mules would be walking on the tow path and they would be the ones that would actually pull us in. We wouldnt have any of the crew members actually doing any of that work. What would happen is once we were completely inside of the lock we would close the two downstream gates which well pass on our way in and what that allows us to do is that allows us to make a sealed, tight area so no water can exit out so that we can actually raise water in that area and this system was actually created by a man way past our time. His name was leonardo da vinci. He created a lot of the things and a lot of those things didnt really work and this was something we decided was a good idea. We did a few modifications to his drawing that he had in a sketch book, but most of it is all the same. And so what happens is this is one side of the lock door that we have here and so with
Attraction in one of marylands state parks. It is a most interesting veteran of three wars. The french and indian, the war for independence, and the war between the states. On bold banks near morehead city, north carolina, the civilian conservation corps is doing another job of repairing the ravages of time. At fort mikan, the sea and wind have been destroying one of the early masterpieces of fortification. On this site for 200 years, forts of one kind or another protrekted this Strategic Point from invasion from the sea. The present fort required 12 years to build. When completed, sometime after 1824, it was considered the last word in Coastal Defense and cost the then amazing sum of 463,700. An active commission during the war between the states, it was seized by the confederates in 1861 and recaptured by the union forces the following year. The walls are of brick and mortar, four feet thick, and theyre rock solid after more than 100 years. Arches, garrison rooms and ammunition magaz
That summer and in the midst of this were electing adams versus jefferson, but theyve learned their lesson. They say well run two guys but you cant specify which is which. So when jefferson wins the election he ties his own Vice President candidate and of course burr and jefferson being tied means by the constitution the election goes to the house of representatives so the first thing we do in our new capitol is basically the house of representatives has to elect the new president and they have to vote more than 30 times before the tie can be broken so now youre saying okay. Weve learned our lesson, lets fix it. So the 12th amendment comes along to straighten out the way of electing a president. But you look back to these early days and theyre managing to find out what doesnt work which isnt much and find out that most of that constitution does, and so were able to today look at that room thats much smaller than the senate today but the senators who sat here, pretty much do the same th
System built on that side by using locks to get around the great falls and the Potomac River. However, it wasnt a very reliable usage. It didnt actually have longtime use. It was very kind of broken, didnt work very well. We went ahead and took his dream and built a canal right next to the Potomac River so that we could use that water source but have something thats more controlled and reliable compared to the Potomac River because you took a boat over the falls, you probably wouldnt last very long. We ran this canal from georgetown to cumberland. We kind of ran into some problems. Also known as the appalachian mountains. We didnt really take that into consideration when we were building the canal itself, and so we kind of got stuck either going through the mountains or trying to go around. The canal is 184. 5 miles long. There are 75 locks, and were going to go through one of them today. Its lock 20 that were going to go through, and so what does the lock do . There is a very big elev
Through the various ports that were in between cumberland and georgetown. Used for cooking and goods like that. You would have goods coming from georgetown, as well. Georgetown was the factory town back then so you did have mills that would produce your grains and meats and you would have timber that would come from there. Any type of furniture, textile goods, clothing and all of that would be shipped up north to the various ports in between there. So this was a twoway traffic back then and there was only one tow path that we had that was used for our mules. So the question im sure you guys are all thinking of it, is how are two boats if theyre going in opposite directions going to pass each other . All right. We will all pretend that there is a boat coming downstream right now at us. Theyre loaded up with coal and so if theyre loaded up with coal that means theyre about 120 tons and were about 8 tons maybe. So that means they have the right of way because its a whole lot harder to sta