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Telescope -47- hull timbers. With such strapwork, wooden bulk freight "steam barges" might do away with exposed hogging arches. This kept their decks clear and low enough for cargo handling apparatus. The Union Steamboat Line's propellers NEW YORK and ROCHESTER of 1879-80 also had no hogging arches, and resembled iron ships. The 287-foot ROCHESTER was the longest propeller on the lakes. Buffalo's Union Dry Dock Company built them with iron trusses in their sides. The Beatty Line propeller UNITED EMPIRE of 1882 was the longest Canadian propeller. She was built at Sarnia with distinctive low hogging arches which were tucked beneath the hurricane deck. These were British-built double arches, made of iron plates butted together. We should distinguish "composite" hulls from these techniques, for these techniques merely served to make wooden hulls more versatile. Besides building costs, there were other compelling reasons for making wooden hulls do. River channels were still shallow and unpredictable in such spots as the Lime Kiln Crossing in the lower Detroit River. Some lake regions like Georgian Bay were just being charted. And there was grief almost any time an iron hull touched bottom or was bumped by a tow barge. There would be broken iron frames and torn hull plates to be mended in dry dock, and probably a water-damaged cargo to be settled with the insurance people. Other accidents were more serious. In October of 1875, MERCHANT, herself, was stranded on a reef off Racine, Wisconsin, and broke her back. Her engine was salvaged, but not her hull. Two of the four Holt and Ensign iron propellers also came to grief in these early years. JAVA sank in Lake Michigan in August of 1878. Some thought she hit an uncharted rock. Others said a propeller shaft must have broken and dropped out, flooding two compartments. But her master dismissed all theories as "conjecture." SCOTIA piled up on Keweenaw Point late in 1884 and quickly broke up. Her owners retrieved her engines and boiler and some scrap iron from her hull. Wood planking was resilient, and absorbed the impact of the more common groundings which would rip an iron bottom. One of the chief arguments for composite ships was that they combined the strength