Exit the Mississippi Stem -Wheeler; 

 Enter the Motor-Barge 



Motor-barges equipped with traveling-cranes, wireless apparatus and other modem apparatus, 

 are to supplant the romantic Mississippi stern-wheeler 



THE old, picturesque stern-wheel 

 Mississippi freighter and passenger 

 boat has a rival in a new type of 

 barge. 



The first of these boats is two hundred 

 and forty feet long, forty-three feet wide 

 and has a cargo structure two hundred 

 feet long, forty feet wide and twelve 

 feet high. The roof of this box-like 

 structure can be removed in its entirety 

 or in sections so as to permit access to 

 any part of the cargo. The stowage of 

 the cargo is facilitated by the use of 

 an electrically-operated traveling-crane, 

 which is capable of sending a boom on 

 either side of the barge a distance of 

 sixty-eight feet, which can travel along 

 the whole length of the barge and which 

 has a lifting capacity of three tons. 



CNO 



tLEVATIOM 

 AND 

 PLAN VIEW 



Diagrams showing structural details of the motor-barges 



696 



These two-thousand-ton barges have 

 a steel hull divided into four watertight 

 and airtight compartments, with no 

 hatches. Hence the boats are practical- 

 ly unsinkable. A puncture of the bot- 

 tom will not permit water to enter 

 faster than it will compress the air in 

 each compartment to a given point. 

 Should any accident puncture a com- 

 partment at any other place, powerful 

 electric bilge-pumps, capable of dis- 

 charging eight thousand gallons per 

 minute, can be operated by a switch 

 located in the pilot-house. 



Another commendable emergency ma- 

 chine is a bow-pump, with suction and 

 discharge at port and starboard at will. 

 By turning a switch the pilot can suck 

 away the water at one side and discharge 

 it at the other with a resultant 

 pull of twenty-five horsepow- 

 er, which enables the vessel to 

 turn from the dock against a 

 forty-mile wind. 



As the illustrations show, 

 the living quarters, engine- 

 rooms and pilot-house are en- 

 tirely separate from the hull 

 proper and the cargo spacing. 

 Forward on the main deck are 

 located the dining-room, the 

 galley, and the large kitchen, 



