38 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



from this congress, go home with the 

 conviction that not rivers and harbors 

 bills, net bond issues by the Government 

 alone will solve your problem and make 

 your little river valuable, but this, with 

 local cooperation and determination on 

 the part of the city to provide the fa- 

 cilities for trans-shipment. 



We come,then, to the third element — 

 the boats in which you are to carry 

 freight. The elements which are neces- 

 sary here are that the boat shall run on 

 very light draft, that it shall tow easily, 

 that it shall be unsinkable and unburn- 

 able and, therefore, insurable at a prac- 

 tically negligible rate, and that it be so 

 shaped that it shall take on and dis- 

 charge its cargo with a maximum of 

 facility and a minimum of cost. This 

 immediately and absolutely, bars from 

 all shallow rivers the old type of 

 wooden packet and any boat which car- 

 ries upper works over the hold, or which 

 carries engines and propelling apparatus 

 in the same box with the cargo. For 

 light draft it is necessary to float your 

 engines in their own hold; that is, we 

 must use a towboat. Then we must 

 spread our cargo over the widest pos- 

 sible space in order to get good displace- 

 ment. The largest barge that can navi- 

 gate the channel safely and pass other 

 boats is the barge you should build, be- 

 cause it will carry more tonnage on less 

 inches. This barge should be built of 

 steel, rectangular, with long rakes at 

 each end, and should be divided into 

 compartments decked over and pro- 

 vided with frequent weather-tight 

 hatches, so that it will carry bulk or 

 high-class cargoes with equal success. 



I can give you some figures of boats 

 actually designed for the Mississippi 

 Valley Transportation Company, ot 

 which I am the secretary. These boats 

 are to be 350 feet long, fifty feet wide, 

 and ten feet deep in the hull, and are 

 after the pattern which I have described. 

 Light, they draw fifteen inches of water. 

 On three feet they will carry 600 tons 

 of freight; on four feet, 1,200 tons; on 

 six feet, about 2,200 tons; on nine fee., 

 4,000 tons. These barges are built for 

 the Mississippi, and are intended to loa 1 

 to their full draft eight months in the 



year in the St. Louis trade, and on lesser 

 draft profitably the rest of the year. 

 Such barges will receive their cargo 

 from overhead by the public electric 

 cranes which you will install. They will 

 carry on any draft you happen to have, 

 profitably, whether it be thirty inches 

 or six feet ; heavier freights in deej) 

 water ; moderate freights, but still 

 profitable freights, in shoal water ; and 

 they will cost you $50,000 each. 

 Smaller barges, carrying smaller 

 freights but still very profitably, can 

 be built for much less. The investment in 

 one of these barges is considerable, but 

 the boat herself returns much more than 

 the actual transportation cost because 

 she saves so much in insurance and 

 requires no maintenance for thirty or 

 forty years but a coat of paint every 

 winter. 



The average freight rate in America is 

 seven-tenths of a mill a ton-mile. High- 

 class freight ordinarily pays about a 

 cent a ton mile, and in the Southeast, 

 two to three cents, and of this, the 

 greater part goes to handling at the 

 terminals and to the maintenance or 

 right of way. River terminals can be 

 made much more economical than rail- 

 way terminals, reducing the cost of load- 

 ing from 40 cents to about 6 cents a 

 ton. Maintenance of right of way costs 

 you nothing, and the propulsion of 

 these long rake steel barges is so easy 

 that on the average rivers of the South 

 they ought to be able to carry freight 

 for six-tenths to eight-tenths of a mill 

 a ton mile, and at a public freight rate 

 of 2 mills a ton mile for ordinary high- 

 class service to make very liberal profits 

 and immensely reduce the rail rates. 

 We have these 2-mill, and even i-mill 

 freight rates now on the water, but 

 at present they do not include insur- 

 ance, nor do they include the cost of 

 bringing the freight to the landing. 

 The rates which we are to get in tlic 

 INIississippi Valley provide for the 

 taking of the freight from the side- 

 track of the warehouse and delivering 

 it in the warehouse at the other termi- 

 nus, and they absorb the insurance and 

 all local charges. That is what we are 

 able to do by modern appliances. 



