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Zo MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. MANCHESTER SHIP-CANAL,. At a time when the sugject of canals is of active interest in this country, because of the ratification of the Panama canal treaty, especial attention is attracted to the Manchester ship- canal, which it was at first thought would prove a failure but which has shown a growth of 400 per cent. in the past eight years. It is understood that the International Mercantile Marine Co. has decided to add to its Manchester service and will supplement the Lamport and Holt, now plying between New York and Man- chester, with other steamships which will ply between Boston and Manchester. 'I'welve years ago Manchester suffered from a lack of communication with the outside world. Manchester is a great manufacturing town. It fact it is a succession of closely packed towns, cemented visually with an endless succession of chimneys belching smoke. It is, however, thirty-two miles from Liverpool and naturally it suffered the handicap of extra handling of freight. The project to construct the Manchester canal was fought by Liverpool bitterly and it was only after years of effort that the bill was passed. The entire cost of the canal was $75,000,000. -- 'the construction of the canal was not long ago looked upon as impossible. Railroads had to be diverted and carried across the route on bridges of such height that ships might pass be- neath. Canals that crossed its path had to be turned away or purchased outright, and in one case a small barge canal was carried over the ship-canal by means of a turn bridge made in the form of a great, elongated tub, which can carry a canalboat, horse, crew and all as it swings around. There are locks at either end, to prevent the water escaping, and then, when :: ship has passed and the bridge swings into place again, the locks are opened, and the canal boat that has been imprisoned can go on its way. 'This piece of engineering is called the Barton aque- duct. It is 235 ft. long, 18 ft. wide, 6 ft. deep, and weighs on the swing 1,400 tons. Because of minimum depth of 26 ft. the Manchester ship- canal permits ocean-going ships of this draught to enter its locks at Eastham, on the south shore of the Mersey, about 7 miles from the central wharves of Liverpool. After following the shore of the Mersey to Rucorn it then strikes out for some dis- tance in a straight line in the direction of Manchester. Further along the canal follows the bottom of the Mersey and Irwill rivers, and at its terminus the wharves in Manchester are grouped alongside of two arms of an artificial lake. Here the land has been laid out to accommodate the greatest amount of freight with least amount of handling. 'There are eight wharves, ranging in length from 560 to 1,350 ft. and in width from 120 to 250 ft. A mammoth new wharf is now being built' which will be 2,700 ft. long and 250 ft. wide, and which will enabie ten ships the size of the steamships New York to unload at cnce alongside. The largest locks are 600 ft. long, so that any ship not exceeding this length, and thus. including the majority of Atlantic liners, is able to use the Manchester canal. It is esti- mated that if the canal was utilized to its fullest capacity it could care for 145,000,000 tons of cargo in 300 working days of the year. This is double that at present handled on the wharves of Liverpool. : a _ The canal company purchased an estate of 2,500 acres.on the banks and at the terminal of the canal, which is now being sold, a parcel at a time, as sites for manufacturing plants. Much land has already been bought by large American concerns, and there has been built the British Westinghouse plant occupying several acres of land. Within immediate access of the docks are oil tanks, cattle yards and auction rooms, a grain elevator of American make, cold air storehouses. for. frozen meat, huge warehouses for storing cotton and other bulky commodities, dry docks, oil tanks, and canal pontoons to accommodate every character of cargo. The different parts of wharfage property are connected by a railroad system 40 miles in extent, so that freight may be unloaded direct from the ship into cars for in- terior points. Consignments which are to be sent to other sea coast towns are unloaded directly. into coastwise steamships moored alongside. 'Ine facilities for dispatching traffic to all parts of England from the docks direct. by rail give Manchester great advantages. Not only is there a considerable monetary saving, but the handling of the cargo is reduced to a minimum by being loaded direct from ship to railway truck when des- tined for interior towns. Fresh meat and perishables. especially are kept in better condition by being dispatched direct from the docks by rail instead of having to be carried from ship to rail- way station, as is the case at Liverpool, S It thus costs much less to ship goods to the Manchester manufacturing district by way of Manchester than Liverpool. For example, cotton consigned to Manchester by way of. the canal costs for terminal charges 6 shillings 3 pence a ton, while by Liverpool the cost would be 12 shillings 8 pence.. For cotton consigned to Oldnam the canal route would cost g. shillings .¢ pence, while the Liverpool route would have cost 14 shillings 8 pence. On one ship carrying a miscellaneous cargo from New York to various towns and cities of the United Kingdom, it was estimated that the canal cost $6,769 less than Liverpool, charges would have amounted to. 'This ship was the Vienna, which reached Manchester from New York Aug. 28, with a cargo of 5,877 tons. The steamship Manchester Corporation from, New Orleans, with 5,916 tons cotton and large quantities of grain [Mar. 26, and lumber, showed a saving of $6,893, or 5.19 cents per 100 lbs. . the Manchester Port, with 6,258 tons general cargo and live stock from Montreal, $7;229, or 5.19 cents per 100 lbs. The Leyland Line, which was the first of the English lines purchased by Mr. Morgan, has established a new service between Manchester aiid Boston. If this is to some extent experimental, as far as Manchester is concerned, it is regarded as equally a test of the capacity of the New York New Haven & Hartford Rd. to handle a large export traffic at South Boston. The. wharves at South Boston owned by the New England Rd. which is controlled by the New York, New Haven & Hartford, have in the past been used mainly as a station from which loaded trains were ferried on floats across the harbor to other terminals. All this is now changed. 'The South Boston wharves have been altered to accommodate the Manchester and other ocean steam ers which load there, and the officials of the New York, New Haven & Hartford road are confident of developing a large traffic. Since 1894, when the canal was opened, its traffic has in- creased from 925,659 tons to 3,418,059 tons. In only the last six months the traffic has shown half a million tons growth. The cotton industry, which won for this district a world-wide prestige, but which in the face of American competition declined to an alarming extent in the last quarter century, has been quick- ened and prospered. Whole villages of empty houses have been populated with incoming workmen. For. the purpose of accom- modating this growing commerce the canal company is now en- larging its docks and warehouses. 'The population of Manches- ter has grown from 700,000 to 820,000. ~ Although new steamship lines have been opened between Manchester and certain ports of Italy and Spain, and also between Manchester and Norwegian points, neverthe- less it is to America that this English city looks for the bulk. of its trade. John K. Bythell, the chairman of the board of direc- tors of the ship canal company, for example, showed how greatly England has now come to depend upon American commerce, by saying in his last report: "Our revenue during the current year will largely 'depend upon whether the great transatlantic trade should assume large dimensions or not. 'The American railways have been blocked' by an enormous interior traffic, and steamers have had to come away with vacant space, because the railways have been unable to bring the cargo down. I hope we will see a change in this unfortunate state of things. All our ports are now greatly dependent upon the American trade, as you (the di- rectors) are aware." The New York service is triangular, the ships going first to Rio Janeiro, where they unload cargoes of manufactured products from the factories and foundries of the Manchester district; then they take to New York loads of coffee and other tropical products, and returning carry mixed cargoes of hay, steel shaft- ing, machinery, pig iron, copper, lead, steel, slate, lubricating oil, glucose; résin and lumber. The Boston line is handling a great amount* of grain, while from Canadian ports the Manchester linefs carry large numbers of cattle and sheep. In the summer time the ships use. Montreal and Quebec as ports, instead of the winter harbors of Halifax and St. John. In addition to the line of steamers from the United States and Canada, lines of steam- ers are now trading regularly between Manchester and Australia, the Persian Gulf, Bombay, Syria, Egypt and all the principal ports of the continent of Europe. There is a large consumption in Manchester of all kinds of produce, both food, materials for manufacture and manufactured articles, within a short carting distance of the Manchester docks. 'Lhe port is not, however, dependent alone on that local traffic. It is a great distributing center. The district nearer to Man- chester than to any other steamship port contains a population of no less than 7,500,000 persons. Manchester thus offers excep- tional inducements for the distribution of American produce on a large scale. For this reason the American railway compan- ies which seek to increase their transatlantic trade are one by one establishing lines of steamers to this port. Herbert M. Gibson, the chief traffic superintendent of the company, visited America some fifteen months ago and completed various ar- rangements between American interests and the Manchester ship canal, which are working satisfactorily. 'Phe canal com- pany has two offices on this side of the Atlantic, one in Tor- onto, in charge of R. Dawson Harling, and the other in New York, where G. Armstrong is in charge. __ Rear Admiral Francis T. Bowles recently visited the New York navy yard to inspect the work on the battleship Connecti- cut. Work is progressing on the Connecticut satisfactorily and while the department does not hope to complete it as rapidly as the Newport News Co. completes the sister ship Louisiana, still it desires to maintain the same ratio of progress. 'The navy yard is handicapped by the fact that the government working day is shorter than the ordinary working day. Howard Gould's steam yacht Niagara IV was launched at the yard of the Gas Engine & Power Co. and Charles L. Sea- bury & Co., Consolidated, Morris Heights, New York, last week, She is 111 ft. over all, 104 ft. on the water line, 12 ft. beam and draws 4 ft. 2 in. of water. She is of the high-speed type and is intended to be driven at the rate of 23 miles an hour.