Erie Canal has two heights. One portion is up to 566 Feet and one side 365 Feet from sea level. So locks are constructed to control the flow and for smooth sailing of boats.
The original Erie Canal had 83 locks. The canal was improved and the number of locks went down to 72 locks. The canal was improved again and now there are only 35 locks.
Without technology, the Erie Canal would not have been possible. The land rose 600 feet between the Hudson and Lake Erie. Because of this, 50 locks were needed to complete the 363 mile canal.
The Welland Canal connects Lake Ontario and Lake Erie through a series of eight locks.
The locks of the Erie Canal service barges and recreational boaters by raising and lowering them so they can get through the canal. The 34 locks separate the Hudson River at Waterford with the Niagara River near Buffalo.
Because of water's nature to flow downhill and a canal's need to maintain a more or less constant depth, it has to maintain a relatively level course despite crossing land which changes in elevation. Therefore a canal has to "stair-step" its way over variations in terrain through locks which raise and lower boats to the changing levels of the canal's course.
It's actually spelled Locks - meaning the locks of the Erie Canal. Yes, Lockport, NY offers tour boat rides down the Erie canal with historical information on canal history. It also offers a tour through the Lockport caves that includes history on the canal and manufacturing in the early to mid 1800's.
The Welland Canal.
The Erie Canal
The Irish immigrants dug the ditch and the German stone cutters created the locks.
The Erie Canal was not cemented.
They did not have bulldozers so animals were used to pulled a "slip scraper". German stonemasons were hired to cut stone to build the locks. Irish were hired as labor to pull stumps and shovel dirt into wheel barrows.
The Suez Canal, being a sea-level canal does not use locks. The Suez canal did have movable traffic-control bridges that spanned the entrances to control traffic but these were not, strictly speaking locks. It is by far the longest big-ship canal in the Western world- there are some big canals in both Russia and China.