Show WAS VIAS CALLED BY WASHINGTON First Cape Cod Canal Engineer to Be Pressed Into Service Because of Demand for Experts Thomas Machin the engineer charged by a committee appointed In 1776 by the colony of Massachusetts with the task of making the first survey survey sur sur- vey for the Cape Cod canal was drafted as os an nn army engineer by George Washington before he could make a fair nIr start on the survey says the Engineering News r George Washington's letter to the chairman of ot the Ule committee which appointed Mr MachIn read The great demand we have for engineers engineers en en- in this department has obliged me to order Mr Machin hither to assist assist as as- In that branch of at the Ute business This bit of ot American engineering history is recounted by William Barclay Barclay Bar Bar- clay Parsons In a paper published In inthe tho the Proceedings of the American Society Society Soci Soci- ety of Civil Engineers on the Cape Cod canal which was first proposed more than three huu hundred years ears ago and finally opened to commercial tra flee fice In 1914 1014 |