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4 MARINE REVIEW. [7S RDN CE SoA SLO RAT LO IE OS RSM OR NO ENE ETON LT RT OR ER ee ee age PTET INTRONS! “STE Low Cost of Lake Transportation. The Sault Ste. Marie canal’ officers are about to publish the results obtained from a discussion of the business of the canal during 1890, and it will be shown that the average cost per ton per mile on that part of lake freight that passed through the canal has again been reduced this time to 1.3 mills. Rates are steadily approaching the ocean figure which is estimated at 1 mill per ton per mile. Following are some comparisons gained through advance information regarding the report. Freight Ton-|Valuation of Cepheid Ee ote tibet Cost per ton nage, net. |Fr’t. ton’ge. ried, tufles portation. per mile 1887 5,494,649 |$ 79,031,758 811.4 $10,075,153 2.3 mills 1888 6,411,423 82,156,020 806.9 7,882,077 tec 1889 7,516,022 83,732,527 790.4 8,634,246 Leo 1890 | _ 9,041,213 | 102,214,049 | _*707.2 9,472,214 | 1.3. * Mean 801.5. The rates for different kinds of merchandise vary a great deal. In 1890 coal, which is an up freight, was carried for 0.5 mill per mile-ton, while miscellaneous merchandise cost 3.4 mills per mile-ton. Vessels made big profits in 1887 and this accounts for the high rates of freight. The largest cargo passing the canal in 1890 was 3,021 tons, and was carried by one of the whaleback barges, No. 107. The greatest number of mile-tons was reported by the steam- ship Northern Queen, one of the Great Northern railway boats. The greatest aggregate number of tons carried through the canal by any vessel during the season was 77,124 tons by the steamship Manola, owned by the Minnesota Iron Company. This boat also reported the greatest number of miles run, viz: 49,201 miles. total season’s run up to 50,580 miles in 223 days. _It is believed that no boat ever before ran this distance in so short a time. The total valuation of all vessels using the canal during the last four years is as follows: BPRS oe sGenrsue so tetounhs soc sco sicwasaesnocessss-atusses ro Eee $19,773,950 BRS ese eso es oe vo yecksskakedsebacssnascowore se. «= 21,895,400 MOO ee cece tus oc es Sees dostosicessecoecovesextsessax cast 26,926,200 (ICO SE SS ies i a a lS oR ma I Ge 29,635,500 This shows that about $10,000,000 worth of vessel property has been added to the Lake Superior fleet within the past font ‘years. A Big Movement in Coal. The coal shippers have certainly contributed their share to the general lake trade since the opening and they are getting fair prices for their product. Only a few cargoes of Pittsburgh bituminous coal have been sold below the established prices of $2.25 and $2.35, free aboard vessels, and this was to relieve cars that had accumulated on account of the rush of coal to lake ports previous to May 1. Buffalo’s shipments of hard coal for May aggregated 356,410 tons against 230,880 tons last year, and the receipts at Chicago for last week alone were 179,500 tons. Buffalo’s shipments from the opening to June 1 were 445,600 tons against 345,010 tons last year. Receipts of one company at the head of Lake Superior, the Silver Creek & Morris, foot up 40,000 tons for May. This amount is nearly one-half of this company’s entire receipts for last season. Whether this movement will hold out at remunerative rates against the light demand for ves- sels to carry down-bound freight is, of course, an important question, but the season is very late and it is certain that the de- mand for coal is great. The boats that have made trips down the lakes light for coal have not earned any money by such a proceeding but their owners figure that the wages of the captain and engineer who must be kept aboard after the boat is fitted out, together with insurance and other charges, foot up $25 or $30 a day on a big boat and this is reduced materially by carrying the coal, The boats owned by Wolf & Davidson, Milwaukee, have In addition she made one trip to Escanaba bringing her ° made two trips to Buffalo for coal that pays 60 cents a ton and the H. D. Coffinberry and consort and John F. Eddy and con- sort did likewise after remaining some time at Milwaukee with- out being able to secure ore or grain. A Whaleback in 1858. Horace See, E. and N. A., of New York, writing about “Building the Steamship in America,” in the Engineering Mag- azine, of New York, gives some attention to the McDougall barges, of lake fame, calling them a modification of a cigar steamer built in 1858. ‘Ihe ease with which iron could be fashioned into almost any form,’ he says, “was taken advantage of by the nu- merous inventors to construct vessels of peculiar shape, even in the early days of its application to shipbuilding. Ross Winans, of Baltimore, the locomotive builder and constructor of railroads in Russia, conceived the idea that the parabolic spindle was the cor- rect form to give a vessel to insure strength, speed and what not. Having a large fortune to assist him he, himself, built such a vessel in 1858 to test the truth of his theory. It was called the cigar steamer, on account of its shape closely resembling that of its namesake. It would have been quite natural to have pro- pelled this vessel with a screw propelier placed at one end. Such a simple agent, however, was not employed, but a wheel resem- bling a turbine was fitted and made to revolve on the outside of the hull about midships. It was driven by engines of the loco- motive type. ‘This vessel had no keel or stem, and, as a natural consequence, failed on account of insufficient stability.” The writer also says that the first successful triple expansion engine fitted to a vessel in this country was in the yacht Peer- less, built in 1885, by Cramp & Sons, and now hailing from Cleveland, being owned by the Harkness estate. This boat is 146 feet long, 22 feet beam and 13 feet depth of hold. The en- gine has cylinders 17, 24 and 40 inches diameter by 22 inches stroke of piston. There is one boiler with 70 square feet of grate, built to carry 170 pounds of steam. Forced draught in a close fire room enabled the boiler to generate sufficient steam to develop about 1,100 indicated horse-power, or very nearly 16 horse-power to each square foot of grate. Greatest of Steamship Records. There is probably no place on the globe where vessels and cargoes are handled with the dispatch attending the transporta- tion of iron ore on the lakes. Attention is again called to this fact by the results obtained from a discussion of the business of the Sault Ste. Marie canal, published elsewhere, and by reference in Atlantic coast publications to the work of the Morgan Line steamship E] Sol, trading between New York and New Orleans. This boat recently made the round voyage in 12 days, 12 hours and 40 minutes, steaming a distance of 3,502 miles and discharg- ing and loading at New Orleans. This is pronounced unprece- dented but it falls short of the lake records of a number of big 3 steel ore carriers. The round trip distance from Two ‘Harbors, Lake Superior, to Ashtabula on Lake Erie is 1,778 miles, but the s boats of the Minnesota Steamship Company make the run, load- ing and unloading 2,300 gross tons of ore in 6 days, and this , week after week for the whole season. When it is known that _ this immense cargo is put into the boats of this class in two to three hours and is taken out in six to ten hours, this wonder- ful service will be understood. The discussion of the canal tre by government officials shows that the steamship Mano first of these boats to go into commision in 1890, covered 0,58 miles and delivered 77,125 tons of cargo during the season days. But the Minnesota boats are not the only fly big carriers in the Escanaba trade made thirty-two Ae round trips of 1,178 miles each to Lake Erie. the prevailing rate on ore from Escanaba, this carried 600 miles and delivered on dock from that is less than the railway freight from th port, a distance in some cases of 0: