64 CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF 



and 20 miles unnecessary backing downstream. As some of our boats make 100 

 landings upstream and about 60 downstream, two trips each week, we can save 

 about one day in each week by having a boat that will make all landings with head 

 downstream with a stern stage and gangway, taking freight and passengers over 

 the stern. We would then have 52 more working days each year in which the 

 fuel bill will be covered by the saving in waste and, as salaries, insurance, sub- 

 sistence and overhead expenses are already paid, the only additional expense we 

 would have in labor of handling the extra freight is also covered since this labor 

 is carried on the boat and paid by the month. 



These are facts as found in daily average practice. We have seen sufficient 

 demonstration to believe that properly designed tunnel propeller boats would be 

 hull down the first few hours out if leaving port at the same time as a similarly 

 powered, manned and burthened stern-wheeler. The use of a navigator's bridge 

 on each side of pilot-houses would enable the pilot to see the whole side of his boat 

 and thus prevent many accidents, and the use of two officers to land and maneuver 

 a boat would not be necessary. The use of engine-room telegraphs would pre- 

 vent the misunderstanding and mistakes in bells, and the many occasions of in- 

 tense overheating of pilots and engineers would not occur, besides the loss of time 

 and money. Steel houses and modern attachments and practice will prevent the 

 many above enumerated losses from preventable accidents, and the properly de- 

 signed boats would prevent the many losses from delays and elapsed time, all 

 making towards more satisfactory and economical trips of the boats ; and the ele- 

 ment of safety found in the unburnable and unsinkable boat will go a long way 

 towards inviting many passengers who would not otherwise patronize the boats. 

 Even now many boats carry their capacity as many trippers and way passengers 

 are being carried. What would be the result, should a freight train back out of 

 Memphis and turn around at every station at which it stopped? The general 

 manager of that road would be discharged before the train reached Friar's Point. 

 There is no profit in carrying freight for the same tariff as the railroad and back- 

 ing it out of port and for many useless miles downstream as we now do. The boat 

 owner pays this great loss of time and money. With fast express steamers prop- 

 erly designed high-class cargoes can be delivered in about half the time now re- 

 quired by the railroads, so that a reduction in the tariif would not be necessary. 



The general impression that railroads kill steamboats is untrue, as evidenced 

 by the many passengers carried on the Hudson River on two or three lines of boats 

 and as many railroads ; also on Long Island Sound, with its many well-patronized 

 boats, and one outside line, and as many railroad lines to Boston. There are three 

 lines of railroad from New York to Norfolk, and the Old Dominion Line some- 

 times operates eight ships a week, and always seven. The Chesapeake Bay steam- 

 ers are in direct opposition to valuable and active railroads, as also are the boats 

 on the Potomac River from Washington to Norfolk. On many of these lines it is 

 impossible to obtain berth room without several days' engagement ahead. A steam- 

 ship line from New Orleans to Florida ports is prospering, its passenger fares about 



