60 CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF 



up. This expense seems never noticed in cost of operation, or it certainly 

 would have been sufficient of itself to cause a revision of construction. Many- 

 tons of fuel are annually wasted by this cause alone, as also by pumping and the 

 more wasteful siphoning of hulls that have been damaged by grounding or collision. 



Iron hulls are, of course, more desirable, but this material is not now avail- 

 able for boat construction. The first iron hull built for river service in this vi- 

 cinity was the John T. Moore, built at Cincinnati in 1871, and after use on the 

 Red River, and the Alabama River at Mobile, and in the harbor of New Orleans 

 as a Southern Pacific Railroad transfer boat, is now the flagship of the barge 

 fleet of the Kansas City-Missouri River Navigation Co., and is named the Endeavor, 

 good for several years of money-making usefulness. 



We have lost some boats from overloading and other glaring instances of 

 carelessness that should have been prevented. One packet overloaded at a sugar 

 landing and, backing ofif in a fog, brought up on the opposite bank of the Missis- 

 sippi River stern first, carrying away stern-wheel and rudders, when the use of 

 a drift lead or sounding pole would have indicated that the boat had sternway. 



Many of our boats have grown out of former wrecks and, directly opposed to 

 eastern practice, where a hull has been known to have had three sets of boilers and 

 engines looking to economy, we have several sets of machinery that have served 

 on three or more boats. 



One would think that, with the cost of operation steadily ascending, caused 

 by scarcity and high price of labor, we would welcome any economy in the mechan- 

 ical operation of the boats, but in many instances such is not the case. Since the 

 contest in the harbor of Charleston, W. Va., several years ago between the quad- 

 ruple expansion twin-screw ttinnel steamer General Rumsey and the larger 

 stern-wheel towboat D. T. Lane, in which the Rumsey was victorious in every test, 

 there have been very few cases of the adoption of more modern and econorhical 

 machinery, as such a demonstration as this should warrant. Photographs of this 

 contest and full descriptions were published broadcast. An owner who feels keenly 

 the increased cost of operating his stern-wheel fleet, recently remarked that he saw 

 this article but was not interested in it. 



One of our cross-compound surface-condensing stern-wheelers, built in 1889, 

 and operating in a I lo-mile tri-weekly mail route, saves $50,000 during her four 

 years' mail contract over a sister boat of the non-condensing non-compound type, 

 which latter is the prevailing and favorite type now in use. 



Another $25,000 can be saved over and above this very favorable perform- 

 ance by using Diesel engines or gas producers, as has been demonstrated by the 

 new barge line between Alabama and Warrier River points and New Orleans ; their 

 barges show a consumption of one pound of coke breeze per brake horse-power per 

 hour. They carry from 800 to 1,000 tons coal on a draught of 6 feet to 7 feet, and 

 operate with twin screws, using 75 brake horse-power on each, making about seven 

 miles per hour loaded. We have boats now in use that use from 6 pounds to 9 

 pounds coal per horse-power (indicated) per hour, and their fuel is delivered along- 



