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oe fe fe 28 349 tons were moved through the canals. The United States canal was opened April 20 and:closed Dec. 11, a season of 236 days. The Canadian canal was opened April 21 and closed Dec. 16, a season of 240 days. -- Herewith is the comparative . state- ment for the years 1908 and 1909. TAE Marine REVIEW year, so that the new one ought to be ready by fall. The elevator industry has had a great many turns. up and down in Buf- falo harbor during the last quarter of a century. Not so very long ago it was given the polite name of the "Pi- rate Monopoly," a term used with many variations by the many enemies of this ee ere COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF SAULT STE. MARIE CANAL COMMERCE. Total Traffic Increase ST EUs eason Season Per et z 1908 1909 Amount cent Vessels: ae ' 3,910 31 Stedmets)s Number... ee 12.553 16,463 ' aiing, NUMER ccc. sss ie sees os 1,355 1,787 as 2 Wnregistered, mumber <.,.-....:...-.. 15273 954 ae AIDED oe oes ee ete ss eee 15,181 19,204 4,023 26 a: eee ae 10,685 13,571 2,886 27 Tonnage:- : i NOE ce ee eee eee 31,091,730 46,751,717 15,659,987 50 mo dee os eee en eae ee 41,390,557 57,895,149 16,504,592 40 Wencceheers, "number... 5 ea a ey 53,287 59,948 6,661 13 Or erd, HOE ONS) soe ce cas atl oe vats Lae 1,384,743 1,412,387 27,644 Z EP DOlt Net. CONS 5 cece ewes ea oes 8,517,717 8,527,639 9,922 Be lor harcels ee oe 5,704,375 7,094,175 1,389,800 24 We edt, DUSHEIS. 2 so ie rad were he eas oes 106,041,873 113,253,561 7,211,688 7 WGI, DUSHEIS (occ. ik oo ee epi 43,458,583 46,519,451 3,060,868 7 Manufactured and pig iron' net tons...... 289,308 522,281 232,973 81 abe DaTtels: fon 6s hos ee ee ik aces bac cea . 547,223 651,091 103,868 19 Copper, net tons.....0... Pe ge ee ae : 101,735 127,212 25,477 25 ron Ore, net tons...) 2. 6. ook ee ne, 24,650,340 40,014,978 15,364,638 62 Lumber, M. ft. B. M..... Mere s she ei vip cee We wears 453,761 $52,380 98,619 22 Building Stone, net tons:.. 2.6.22 6. e.00 5, : 1,019 1,784 765 45 Genera} merchandise, net tons......:..... 842,901 1,140,344 297,443 35 GRAIN ELEVATOR INDUSTRY. Buffalo, Jan. 5 The radical change taking place in the grain elevator in- dustry is well illustrated by the an- nouncement that the Spencer Kel- logg -Co. was preparing to tear down its Coatsworth elevator and erect a steel one in its place. The Coats- worth is a good house for handling grain and is by no means old or an- tiquated, as it replaced the older house of the same name, which burned 15 years ago or so. All the trouble with it is that it is of wood and that alone classes it far below the fire-proof ele- vator. The Western Elevating Associa- tion lately issued their winter-storage rate card and,.as usual made a rate of 2 cents on the fireproof houses and one of 1% cent on the other, which tells the story plain _ enough. ° The new Coatsworth elevator will have a capacity of 1,000,000 bushels to 750,000 of the present house and it is to be erected on a new plan that will provide machinery to take the place of about half the working force of even most of the later fire-proof struc- tures of that sort. It will be 56 by 285 ft. in dimensions and 155. ft. high, costing about $275,000. It is stated that the removal of the present ele- vator will begin about the first of the grain route and some of the more wordy of the canal boatmen. There was of course a shadow of truth to the: charges; as there: usually is in such cases, but at the same time it is dowbtful if; the charge of 7% cent in the old days before the state law began the cutting of it down to % cent ever drove any consider- able amount of business away. from this route. Certainly the route was never so much in danger from outside competition then as it is today. Of late everything has seemed to work against the -Buffalo-New York grain route. There has been. much said about Canadian competition via Montreal and that has done what it could, but after all that can be said the real competitor has been the all- rail route through from the grain cen- ters of the west, which enables the shipper to maintain his small elevator and sell to eastern customers without putting his grain through the elevators of either Chicago or Buffalo. Then the railroads have beaten the lake-and- rail route again by a high rate from Buf- falo to the seaboard, which both Buf- falo and New York have tried in vain to reduce, Though this city is in a hurry for the completion of the barge canal to tide water mainly for the outlet it will afford to her fast-growing iron indus- try it can hardly fail to reduce com- petition in grain carrying to its lowest terms, for it will then be possible to January, 1910 carry freight to the seaboard so much cheaper than it can be carried now that it may again pay to hold corn for putting through the Chicago ele- vators for lake and canal shipment, just as used to be the practice long ago. It does not take a very old mem- ber of the grain trade to remember when the lake interests began to notice that grain from points not north of Chi- cago began to come east by rail with- out regard to the lake opening, but as it goes now there will never again be any 10,000,000-bushel opening fleet from Lake Michigan to Buffalo, though the lay of the land still places the lakes first on grain from the Northwest, so that there is little rail competition yet from Duluth. People who go to Europe do not fail to express admiration for the way some features of the railroad service are carried out, but at the same time they find the river Rhine crowded full of freighting tows and note that England, so small and narrow that any route is pretty short, still keeping up its little one-horse canals everywhere, all in spite of what the railroads are able to do by way of competition. America came pretty near making a bad mistake in the giving up of its canals and ne- glecting certain features of its lake routes, but that day is no doubt past. The Erie barge canal is being rushed ahead at the rate of over a million dol- lars a month and if it proves half the benefit that its friends believe it will there will be no further throwing away of canals in this country. Buffalo has now 19 elevators that have done a lake business this season, of which 10 are in the pool direct and five of the others are barred out by be- ing owned by railroads, but which pro- rate with the pool and the others are making no particular disturbance, so that the business is quite tranquil, though it is not at the best very profitable in these days, for the amount of grain is less than it used to be and expenses go up as rates go down. The late in- crease of winter storage®* business has done something towards making - the business profitable. The half-cent rate charged by vessels for holding grain through the winter divides this busingss with the elevators, as they carry several million bushels. There are now six fire-proof eleva- tors in operation in the harbor and there will soon be added the elevator of the Washburn-Crosby mill, of 1,000,- 000 bushels capacity, the new Wheeler of 750,000 bushels, which with the new Kellogg will provide a safe stor- age capacity of about 12,500,000 bush- els, Joun W. CHAMBERLIN. t j | i # Mecca: et a