254 RURAL MICHIGAN 



Michigan a direct and relatively cheap means of 

 transportation to the .seaboard. The traffic carried on 

 the Erie Canal in 1837 amounted to 667,151 tons. 

 By 1845 it reached 1,038,700 tons. It reached 

 3,159,33-1: tons in 1852, and continued above this 

 mark for several years, and exceeded 3,000,000 tons 

 in most years of the last three decades of the cen- 

 tury. Then a decline set in, until an upward turn 

 manifested itself as late as 1920.^ Meanwhile the 

 St. Mary's Ship Canal had been opened in 1855, 

 and this waterway became of vital importance to 

 the economic progress of the northern peninsula. 

 Wiseacres had opined that its traffic would never 

 warrant the cost of its construction, but it mani- 

 fested its usefulness from the outset and, by a steadily 

 increasing tonnage, developed a traffic which, in 1916, 

 aggregated almost 92,000,000 short tons. As late 

 as 1920, its tonnage of freight amounted to 79,- 

 282,496. A better conception of the significance of 

 these figures can be obtained when it is noted that 

 the 1920 traffic of the Panama Canal was 9,374,499 

 tons. In 1919 the Suez Canal passed 16,013,802 tons 

 of freight. This indicates that the Michigan water- 

 way exceeds threefold the combined commerce of the 

 two world-renowned waterways. 



This enormous water-borne commerce of the Great 

 Lakes is promoted by exceptional docking facilities 

 for bulk commodities, such as ore and grain, a type 

 of vessel specially designed for their economical 



^ "Rept. of Superintendent of Public Works, New York," 

 Albany, 1919, 462. 



