filled and emptied, by mechanical appliances. There are two methods of loading wheat into the ocean vessel: one being to bring the ship alongside an elevator and chute the grain into the ship by gravity; another being to take the grain from cars, or elevator, to the vessel in floating elevators. The latter method is the one followed in New York, and has the advantage of allowing the vessel to lie alongside its own pier and take on general cargo, while grain is being placed into the hold by a floating elevator on the side of the vessel opposite the pier.

ore.

There are three general methods of handling coal or When possible, the coal and ore are brought by cars to the Great Lakes, or the seaboard, and are dumped through the bottom of the cars into the "pockets" of a high pier, and are run from the pockets into the vessel by gravity. Another method much employed in loading coal into vessels is to elevate the car and its load and dump the coal into chutes leading to the bunkers or hold of the vessel. Electric cranes carrying bucket loads of five tons, more or less, are much used to unload ore and coal at the lake and ocean ports. The buckets are often carried to and from the vessels under steel cantalevers several hundred feet long. This enables coal and ore to be stored in dumps or loaded into cars some distance from the ship.

Among the highly useful port facilities are the numerous specialized warehouses for grain, fruit, meat, tobacco, and various other commodities. In the great European ports these various warehouses are supplied and managed by the port authorities, and regular charges for the services are collected. This policy has been a great aid to the development of trade. In the United States the warehousing service is usually performed by the shipper or carrier. The European system enables the small ship

per and carrier to engage in business more easily than he can in the United States.

As far as possible the railroad and the vessels are brought side by side, and cargo is transferred mechanically from one carrier to the other. In practice, however, a large amount of storing and warehousing is necessary, and also a large amount of lightering, trucking, and carting of goods is unavoidable. In the London docks three fourths of the cargo of the vessels is loaded and unloaded from lighters. In New York harbor there are ten thousand lighters. The lighters carry the cargoes from one part of the port to another, from the shipper to the ship, or the reverse, or from one ship or warehouse to another vessel or quay. A surprisingly large amount of this transfer work is done by drays and wagons, for which special loading and unloading machinery is often provided. The dray, however, is used most largely for handling freight between the quays and the warehouses, stores, and factories of the merchants and manufacturers doing business in and near the seaports.

REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING

SMITH, J. R. "The Organization of Ocean Commerce." 1905. Chapters II, III, and XIV.

"The Foreign Commerce and Navigation of the United States." Bureau of Statistics, Department of Commerce and Labor. (These annual volumes contain the statistics of our foreign trade, and give a yearly review of the foreign commerce of the United States.)

CHAPTER VI

THE PASSENGER SERVICE

THE Ocean passenger service receives more attention and current discussion than the freight service does, not only because everyone is more concerned about the personal comfort and safety of himself and his friends than he is about the conditions affecting the transportation of his property, but also because the passenger service is conducted in vessels whose speed and equipment are much advertised by the many steamship companies. Ocean travel, moreover, is a favored theme with the popular magazines and their contributors. For these reasons the main facts regarding the ocean passenger service are rather widely known, and an extended statement will not be necessary in this treatise. The forces controlling ocean passenger fares will be discussed in a later chapter.

Though the ocean passenger service is of less importance than the freight traffic in the economy of society, the service of carrying passengers and the mails has had a greater influence than the freight business has exerted upon marine engineering and upon the introduction of technical improvements in ships. The great desideratum in the freight service is economy and safety; in the transportation of passengers, speed and safety; and as between economy and speed, it is to the latter that inventors have given greater study.

Invention has accomplished great results in increasing the speed of ocean steamers, and in enhancing the com

forts and safety of ocean travel. During the past fifty years the time of passage across the North Atlantic has been reduced one half, and nearly as great a reduction has been made on the other important ocean routes. The comforts and conveniences now obtainable aboard the best steamers are incomparably superior to those provided a generation ago. Ocean travel still has its risks; but the ship 500 to 700 feet in length and 65 to 75 feet in breadth, with twin screws, numerous water-tight bulkheads, and a double steel bottom, has greatly reduced the dangers of the sea voyage. Every year sees some new feature added to the equipment of the ocean liner, despite the fact that electricity, elevators, ice machines, cold storage, and numerous other auxiliaries have already made the ocean vessel a great floating hotel. The future will doubtless greatly improve upon present facilities; indeed, the turbine engine, the introduction of which is just beginning, promises not only to increase appreciably the speed of ocean vessels, but also to reduce the unpleasant jarring motion of the ship caused by the powerful reciprocating engines now employed to secure high speed.

The technical development of the ocean passenger service has been the cause and consequence of the rapid increase in the volume of ocean travel. Since 1880, the annual number of Americans taking cabin passage abroad has more than trebled, and the number of immigrants entering the United States each year has more than doubled. In 1904, the cabin passengers departing from the seaports of the United States numbered 184,613; the number of "passengers other than cabin" was 323,591, making a total of 508,204. The arriving cabin passengers numbered 175,818, and the immigrants 812,870, making a total of 988,688 arrivals. In 1905 the tide of immigration rose even higher, and over a million steerage passengers-1,026,499—were admitted. The total num