Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Marine Review (Cleveland, OH), 10 Jul 1902, p. 21

The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

1902.] MARINE CANALS BUILD UP RAILWAYS. Mr. S. A. Thompson, who was quite active when a resident of Duluth in all undertakings for waterway improvements, and who gained the name of "Deep-Water Thompson" through frequent advocacy in Wash- ington of a 20-ft. waterway throughout the great lakes system, has a very interesting article in the current issue of the Engineering Magazine on "The Influence of Waterways on Railway Transportation." Of course he argues that a serviceable water route benefits and developes not only the world at large, especially the commercial world, but still more directly the pre-existing agencies of transport which, on imperfect consideration, it might seem to threaten or to supercede. 'While the controlling effect of competing waterways on railway rates has been generally recognized," he says, "another effect, of equal or greater importance, has been almost completely overlooked. For, paradoxical as it seems, waterways are not only the most powerful possible regulators of railway rates, but are also the most powerful possible promoters of the prosperity of railways with which they compete. The best thing that could happen to every rail- way in the United States--or elsewhere, for that matter--would be to have a waterway paralleling every mile of its track, and the deeper the waterway, within reasonable limits, the greater would be the benefit derived by the railway." In support of this opinion Mr. Thompson recites the history of canal development on a large scale in France, Germany and other Eu- ropean countries, presenting reports showing that traffic on railways com- peting with the canals increased to a greater extent proportionately than the traffic of the canals. "The greatest railway mileage in the world under one management," says Mr. Thompson, 'is to be found in Germany, unless some of the recent 'community of interest' arrangements in the United States are to be interpreted as constituting common ownership. On July 1, 1888, out of a total of 16,281 miles of road, 14,665 belonged to the German government. Yet the Reichstag, in 1887, passed an act providing for the completion of nearly 1,500 miles of canals and canalized rivers, although there were then finished and in use 1,289 miles of canals and 4.925 miles of canalized rivers. Other improvements have been author- ized and completed since the date named, until today Germany has over 9,000 miles of canals and navigable rivers, and there are nearly 18,000 miles of state-owned railways in Prussia alone. Does any one believe that the German government would expend millions of marks out of the national treasury for the construction and improvement of waterways if the result would be to lessen the national revenues by reducing the traffic on the national railways? "The greatest cities in the United States are all situated on waterways, and the greater cities are without exception on the deeper waterways. The New York Central and its western connections, considered as one system, is paralleled by a waterway almost every mile of the distance from New York to Chicago; and where else in the United States can be found such a succession of prosperous towns and cities, almost within sight of one another all the way, as along the railway system named? Instances of this kind could be multiplied without limit. "The truth is that there are three agencies of transportation, each of which has a fundamentally different function to perform in the com- merce of the world, all of which are as essential as are the three sides of a triangle, and none of which can reach its highest possible efficiency unless accompanied by a symmetrical development of the other two. This trinity of transportation agencies is made up of the wagonway, the railway, and the waterway. Of these, the wagonway is commonly con- sidered to be subsidiary to the other two--and so it is, in the same sense that a foundation is subsidiary to the superstructure. And the waterway is commonly thought to be antagonistic to the railways--and so it is in a sense and to a certain degree. For the three parts are not separated one from another and hemmed in like lakes by rocky shores. Their fields of action overlap, and their elasticity is so great that they can readily conform to all the ever-changing conditions and needs of that complex thing called commerce. The wagonway, however, is essentially local, the railway continental, and the waterway world-wide, in its sphere of action, while the distinguishing characteristic of the wagonway may be called availability, as speed is undoubtedly the dis- tinguishing characteristic of the railway and economy of the waterway. And in the last analysis these three wil! be found to be not competitors, but complements--not antagonists, but auxiliaries. No one thinks of hauling corn or wheat from Chicago to New York in a wagon, nor of puilding a railroad from the barn of every farmer to the nearest grain elevator; and it is in reality just as absurd and economically wrong for a raiiroad to haul low-grade raw materials where there is a deep waterway properly located and equipped to perform the service. "When traffic is carried by an expensive method when an economical .method is available, it results in a loss not only to the community, but to the agency doing the carrying, the facilities of which ought rather to be employed in the transportation of goods of higher grade. Some years ago the directors of the Great Western Railway of England, being dissatisfied with the returns arising from the operations of the road, made an investigation which showed that the manager who was trying to drive a canal out of business, was using 58 per cent. of the total equipment in a traffic which produced only 14 per cent. of the total revenue. "One-sided views are always wrong views, and the railway managers who look only at the traffic which would be taken away from their lines by a waterway, and not at all at that which would be brought to them by the waterway, are as wrong and short-sighted as the mobs that destroyed power looms or harvesting machinery with the idea that fewer men would be employed. The surface roads in New York city desper- ately opposed the elevated roads, fearing that their traffic would be ruined thereby. But the surface roads are more profitable than before the ele- vated lines were built, and the latter possess an enormous and profitable traffic which it would have been utterly impossible for the surface roads to develop. The tonnage which goes around the Cape of Good Hope is as large now as before the construction of the Suez canal, which means that the traffic of 8,000,000 tons a year passing through that waterway has been created thereby. : "The first locks at St. Mary's falls were opened in 1855, in which year the registered tonnage was 106,296 tons. The half-million mark was reached in 1863, and the one-million ton mark was passed in 1873. In 1881, exactly co-incident with the opening of a much larger lock, the north- west began to grow by leaps and bounds and the tonnage of the canal REVIEW. _ 2 rose from 2,000,000 tons in 1882 to 9,000,000 in 1890 and to 16,000,000 in 1896. During the past five years, two more enormous locks have been in operation, one of them on the Canadian side of the river, and in this short time the tonnage of the canal has leaped up to nearly 28,500,000 tons. This colossal tonnage is simply a manifestation of the development which has taken place in the northwest, along with which has come the building of thousands of miles of railroad, including two lines from the head of Lake Superior to the Pacific coast. If by some cataclysm of nature the great lakes should be dried up, the enormous traffic now car- ried on their waters would not be divided among the railroads--it would simply cease to exist. The whole galaxy of cities from Buffalo to Chicago and Duluth would be overwhelmed in hopeless, irretrievable ruin, and the railroads could in no wise escape the general disaster. "The development of the Northwest, which has come chiefly in con- sequence of the building of the locks at the outlet of Lake Superior, marvelous though it is, is but a faint and shadowy image of the develop- ment, similar, but multiplied a thousand fold, which will follow fast upon the completion of an Isthmian canal. Since it is 'not mileage, but cost of transportation, that is the true commercial measure of dis- tance,' the continent will shrink until its eastern and western coasts are commercially but half as far apart, while yet no single acre of its wide expanse is lost. Manila, Yokohama and Hong Kong will be brought close to New York, Boston and New Orleans, while San Francisco, Portland and Seattle will become neighbors of Liverpool, Antwerp and Hamburg. Mines will be opened, deserts made to blossom as the rose. beneath the magic touch of irrigation, towns and cities will spring up, and the western commonwealths grow populous and great, while the manufacturing cities of the eastern states, the cotton planters of the south, and the grain growers of the middle west, will find new and en- larged markets for their products. I can think of no portion of the United States which would not share in the benefits showered abroad by the construction of an Isthmian canal, but if I were asked to point out the interest which would receive the most abundant share of the benefits which would certainly accrue, I should, without an instant's hesitation, name--the railroads of the western states." NOTES FROM FORE RIVER. The seven-masted steel schooner Thomas W. Lawson will be launched at the Fore River Ship & Engine Co.'s yard, Boston harbor, in the afternoon of July 10. The stepping of her lower masts will be completed this week. The masts, which are 135 ft. from step to cap and weigh 17 tons apiece, are hoisted into place by a pair of wooden shears set up on the schooner's deck so that they can be warped along for stepping each mast in succession. A new building has been added to the Fore River works. It is two stories high and contains offices for the foremen of the different depart- ments in the hull division. The last vestiges of the old plant at Wey- mouth, Mass., from which the company moved two years ago to its present location at Quincy Point, on Boston Harbor, have been removed. The company has bought one. of the locomotives which used to run on the Manhattan Elevated road in New York, and which has been displaced by the adoption of electric power, for use in its yard. The concrete work of the dock alongside the new fitting-out basin of the ship yard is well under way. The 75-ton gantry crane that is to run upon it is being set up and the equipment will be ready for use in finishing the cruiser Des Moines as soon as she is launched. TRIAL TRIP OF THE TREMONT. The speed trial trip of the new steamship Tremont, built by the Maryland Steel Co., Sparrows Point, Md., for the Boston Steamship Co., was made last week and was successful. The Tremont left the builders' yards in charge of Capt. J. Richard Thompson, with a repre- sentative of the marine department of the Maryland Steel Co. in charge of the engines. The speeding course was between Sandy point and Kent point, a distance of six miles and return. The Tremont developed a speed of 13.57 knots, which was more than the speed guaranteed in the contract. The Tremont, which was launched in May, is a sister ship to the Shaw- mut, which has just arrived at San Francisco from Philadelphia. She is of 17,000 tons displacement and 11,200 tons dead weight capacity. She measures 505 ft. over all, 488 ft. between perpendiculars, 58 ft. beam, and her depth to the upper deck is 40 ft. She has a straight stem and elliptical stern and three complete steel decks. The Tremont and the Shawmut, together with other vessels which have been procured, will eventually be used in trading between Seattle and the Philippines. CARRYING SALT BOTH WAYS. _ Buffalo, July 9.--Vessels are now engaged in bringing salt from Lake Michigan ports to Buffalo, and the same boats take cargoes of salt from Buffalo to Lake Michigan ports. The steamer Marion, the first of the fleet to bring salt here, will finish loading today a cargo of salt for South Chicago. She will be followed by the R. A. 'Packer, and there are more coming. The salt shipped by lake from Buffalo is rock salt, mined in this state. The salt received here by lake is evaporated salt from Ludington and Manistee. Sufficient evaporated salt is produced ordinarily in this state to supply the eastern market, but the coal miners' strike has deprived the evaporating salt works of fuel, hence the strange spectacle of the same © vessels employed in fetching salt to Buffalo and carrying salt back nearly to the starting point. CLERGUE TO BUILD ANOTHER PAPER MILL. Mr. Francis H. Clergue in an interview a few days ago said: "You can say that plans are being prepared by our company for a big paper mill to be located at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. The plant will cost about $2,500,000. It is yet too early to state when construction will commence, but it is hoped that plans will be completed in time to take advantage of the summer season for construction. The development at the Amer- ican Sault does not contemplate our engaging in the steel business there for the present. It is the company's intention to prosecute the develop- ment of industries as expeditiously as possible on the American side until every water wheel is in use." ee Eines, iit

Powered by / Alimenté par VITA Toolkit
Privacy Policy