JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

The Soo Locks at Sault (the “soo” of “Soo”) Ste. Marie are the four parallel locks that connect Lake Superior with Lake Huron and thus the rest of the Great Lakes–the Poe Locks, designed by O.M. Poe, are on of the four, and when it was completed in 1896 it was the world’s largest. At 800’x100′ they were enormous, and controlled the displacement of a lot of water, and the illustrations below show some examples of the meat of the engineering that controlled that process.   I have these loose engravings from an unfortunately unidentified source (though they are from a U.S. Lake Survey,between 1898-1909) and decided to share them because of their deep engineering beauty.  They are fantastically-rendered objects, filled with steam and grease and huge amounts of The Heavy Stuff, all of which display a remarkable feat of engineering.  

The images are clearer when you click and expand….