ing 6 to 7 feet, carrying 500 tons; and coal floats, carrying from 200 to 300 tons.

...

The towboats usually bring from the mines about 3,000 tons of coal in small fleets, arranged for passing the locks conveniently. . . . At Pittsburg the small coal fleets are moored while awaiting rises sufficient for navigation on the Ohio River. . . When rises of 10 feet occur, or sufficient for 8-feet coal barges, fleets from 10,000 to 15,000 tons are made up for shipment to Cincinnati or Louisville.

At Louisville, two and sometimes three of the Pittsburg fleets are made up into monster fleets of from 35,000 to 40,000 tons, and towed to New Orleans by powerful towboats. A fleet conveying 40,000 tons covers about ten acres.

According to the report of the Merchants Exchange of St. Louis there are 7 lines of river steamers plying between St. Louis and other ports on the Mississippi River and tributaries to the Mississippi; there are also independent packets and towboats, some of which are operated on the lower Mississippi and some on the upper Mississippi. The figures for this St. Louis traffic have averaged about 500,000 tons during recent years.

The great section of country drained by the Mississippi River and its many navigable affluents is still too sparsely settled in most localities to afford a large tonnage for shipment by water. When the region comes to have a dense population, and to have a greater amount of manufactures requiring the shipment of large quantities of materials, there will be greater use made of the waterways. The opening of the Panama Canal will enhance the importance of the Mississippi system of waterways, and of the other rivers flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. The traffic on the Mississippi and other river systems, moreover, can hardly increase to much extent before the more important improvements and extensions now being made are carried out. Only by connecting the river system of Alabama with the coal and iron region of

that State, by uniting the Mississippi River with the Great Lakes by an efficient waterway, and by completing the improvements of the Ohio, the Illinois, Columbia, and other rivers, will we establish conditions favorable for the growth of the traffic of our inland waterways.

The commerce handled on the Great Lakes is of large and rapidly growing volume. The conditions for the development of a heavy traffic could hardly be more favorable than they are in connection with this unrivaled inland waterway. Vessels drawing twenty feet, and carrying 10,000 or 12,000 tons of cargo, have an uninterrupted watercourse a thousand miles in length, connecting the iron and copper mines, the forests, and the grain fields about and west of Lake Superior with the coal fields and highly developed manufacturing sections south and east of Lake Erie, uniting Chicago, Milwaukee, and other great trade centers of the central West with the industrial East, and affording water transportation facilities of the highest efficiency to all the many thriving cities located on the shores of the lakes.

The vessels employed in the transportation of the commerce of the Great Lakes have a total enrolled tonnage of over 2,000,000 tons, and most of this tonnage consists of modern steel steamers of exceptional traffic efficiency. The rate at which the traffic of the Great Lakes has grown since 1870 is indicated by the figures in the table on page 366 for the vessel tonnage at the beginning of each five-year period since that date.

About one third of the total tonnage of shipping under the American flag is in our Great Lakes fleet, and it is this third of our tonnage that is showing the most rapid gains.

The cargo tonnage of the Great Lakes traffic shipped during the calendar year 1905, from the 187 ports from which the United States Bureau of Statistics received

SAIL AND STEAM TONNAGE OF THE GREAT LAKE FLEET BY FIVE-YEAR PERIODS, FROM 1870 TO 1905.

reports, amounted to 67,345,620 net tons.

Five years earlier the shipments amounted to 45,138,420 tons.

The best single index of the traffic on the Great Lakes is to be found in the vessel and cargo tonnage passing the Sault Ste. Marie locks between Lakes Superior and Huron. During the calendar year 1905, 36,778,738 tons of freight passed from Lake Superior to Lake Huron, and 7,491,942 tons were carried in the opposite directionthe total cargo tonnage passing the locks being 44,270,680 The value of this freight was about $450,000,000. The importance of the Great Lakes to the industrial progress of the United States is partially indicated by the fact that the traffic that passed the "Soo" was carried an average distance of 850 miles. The transportation cost per ton mile in 1904 was only .8 of a mill (.081 of a cent).

tons.

The volume of traffic passing the Sault Ste. Marie locks annually from 1881 to 1905, and the increase each year, is graphically shown by the chart on page 367.

The chief characteristics of the commerce moved on the Great Lakes are the preponderance of eastbound over westbound tonnage, and the fact that a few commodities make up most of the freight. The following analysis of

the traffic at the Sault Ste. Marie and on the lakes as a whole will indicate the main features of the service:

(1) The eastbound tonnage in 1905 was nearly five times that moving westward. This results mainly from the great tonnage of iron ore transported from Lake Superior to the soft-coal fields. The raw materials carried eastward exceed in weight the manufactures and the coal which comprise most of the westbound tonnage.

(2) The commerce of the Great Lakes is composed mainly of a few commodities: Iron ore in 1905 comprised

TONS FREIGHT 45,000.000

1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905

42.000.000

39.000.000

36.000,000

33,000,000

30,000,000

27.000.000

24,000,000

21,000,000

18.000.000

15,000,000

12,000,000

9.000,000

6,000,000

3,000.000

1,000,000

six sevenths of the total tonnage moved eastward through the Sault Ste. Marie locks, and one half of the aggregate tonnage of shipments from all the lake ports. Coal made up six sevenths of the westbound tonnage at the Sault Ste. Marie, and nearly one fifth of the total lake traffic. Wheat, other kinds of grain, and flour constitute a large tonnage amounting to one tenth of the freight eastward at the Sault Ste. Marie, and about one twelfth of the total lake traffic. Lumber is another large item, amounting to about one twentieth of the westbound Sault Ste. Marie traffic and of the aggregate lake tonnage. Iron ore, grain

and flour, and lumber include about ninety-nine per cent of the tonnage outbound from Lake Superior. These three classes of traffic, and coal, now comprise over ninety per cent of the Great Lakes tonnage, while "unclassified" or miscellaneous package freight accounts for only eight or nine per cent of the total.

Seven eighths of the total package freight is shipped westbound from the manufacturing East to the agricultural and mining West and Northwest. The westbound traffic on the lakes consists chiefly, in addition to coal, of general merchandise of all kinds, iron manufactures, and salt.

(3) By far the larger part of the freight transported on the Great Lakes is long-distance through traffic-iron and copper ore, grain, flour, and lumber, from Lake Superior to Lake Erie; grain and lumber, from Lake Michigan to Lake Erie, and coal from eastern Lake Erie to the head of Lakes Michigan and Superior. These facts explain why the average distance a ton of freight is moved on the lakes is three times the average distance freight is hauled by rail in the United States. Even the package freight or general merchandise handled on the lakes is long-distance traffic carried beyond the lake on which the shipment originates. There are only three steamship lines, each operating but a few small vessels, engaged solely in Lake Erie traffic. All the large lines of steamers navigate two or more lakes.

(4) Although there are nearly 200 ports on the Great Lakes, most of the traffic is handled at a relatively small number of places. This is shown by the distribution of the four leading articles of traffic: iron ore, grain, lumber, and coal.

Iron ore, which comprised almost half of the entire tonnage in 1905, is nearly all shipped from six Lake Superior ports-Two Harbors, Superior, Duluth, Ashland,