AMERICAN FORESTRY 



streams, such as the White River, the 

 Forked Deer, and the Obion, which we 

 ivill have to serve even on less water 

 :han thirty inches. See how easily this 

 ran be done. We have prepared two 

 :>lans for steel boats, each of them 

 irawn by the eminent English naval 

 irchitect, Sir John Thornycroft. One 

 )f these, for the White River, is for a 

 iteel towboat which will propel about 

 5oo tons ahead of her up that river, 

 md a thousand to 1.200 tons, or 

 >ven more, down stream. This is a 

 ittle steel boat of remarkable power and 

 :fficiency, drawing only fifteen inches 

 vith her fuel on board and having 150 

 lorsepower. For the Obion and Forked 

 Deer we have designed by the same 

 luthority a towboat which will propel 

 :oo to 300 tons up stream and very 

 'air cargoes of cotton, cotton seed and 

 >ther products down stream on a draft 

 if twelve inches of water for a towboat, 

 md this towboat has 125 horsepower, 

 fhese boats are built very light and we 

 lo not care to use them any farther 

 han necessary because we believe in 

 mtting one-fourth inch steel instead of 

 me-eighth inch steel into our hulls when 

 ve can. 



These figures give you an idea of 

 vhat the towboats draw. The big 

 >arges which our company is going to 

 ise will draw fifteen inches light, and 

 vill carry freight on any depth over 

 :hat. They sink one inch for every 

 ifty tons. They are very large and too 

 mmbersome for the little channels, but 

 ,ve have also designed very light, 

 'mail barges carrying 100 to 200 

 :ons for use on the twelve-inch and 

 ifteen-inch rivers. This traffic has to 

 DC handled with the greatest care to 

 ivoid snagging and other dangers, but 

 t requires not a very heavy investment, 

 md when the boats are devoted to high- 

 :lass traffic, as they can be, carrying 

 manufactured goods and products which 

 nay by rail eight to ten mills, and even 

 -' cents a ton mile, they can furnish a 

 very profitable service at rates averag- 



ing two and one-half to three and one- 

 half mills a ton mile, putting first-class 

 goods practically on a parity with rail- 

 road coal rates. 



Given this sort of apparatus, pre-' 

 pared for your river with a view of 

 using your streams at all stages of 

 water, and not being subject to delay, 

 you should have no difficulty in making 

 your small streams of the highest com- 

 mercial value, reducing the costs of 

 freight from your cities to the sea, 

 giving you ready service without the 

 delays incident to rail congestion, and 

 freeing you from the extortion which 

 the railways have only too often prac- 

 tised on the interior. 



And now, in conclusion, I want to 

 say a word about this big revival of 

 traffic on the Mississippi. We have or- 

 ganized there a $10,000,000 corporation, 

 which will in a very short time have to 

 increase its capital to $25,000,000. This 

 company proposes to navigate the deep 

 channels of the Mississippi with deep 

 boats and the shallow channels with 

 shallow boats. It proposes to go out 

 from New Orleans with ocean steamers 

 to any part of the world to which our 

 customers wish to ship a cargo, and to 

 maintain regular lines to the principal 

 South American cities. 



We will do more than this. We will 

 put on coast line steamships and trains 

 of barges for sea-towing to the mouths 

 of all your southern streams. We shall 

 go to Aransas, to Houston, to the Sa- 

 bine, to Pensacola, to Apalachicola, to 

 Brunswick, to Charleston, and to all the 

 intervening ports along the coast, and 

 wherever you have a little river, and on 

 that little river put your steel boats and 

 your efficient transportation and trans- 

 fer apparatus, our ships and barges will 

 come to you and collect your freight at 

 the river mouth, and basing our traffic 

 on the great port of the Gulf at New 

 Orleans we will provide an economical 

 oversea outlet for you to every port in 

 Christendom that you may wish to 

 ship to. 



