INLAND BOAT SERVICE. 5 



another or from the switching of cars. This applies, of course, only 

 to shipments between points reached by the same boat and is true 

 more for less-than-car-lot than for car-lot shipments, A carload car- 

 ried by rail necessarily moves to its destination much more promptly 

 than a small lot, which may have to be transferred from car to car 

 in transit and possibly held for some days at various transfer points. 

 The small lot moves as rapidly as the large one when shipped by 

 boat, and, while the freight rate by boat is often lower for the large 

 shipment- than for the small, the difference between the two rates is 

 usually not so great as it is in railroad traflSc. 



TERMINALS AND LANDINGS. 



One striking difference between river traffic along the Atlantic 

 slope and that in the Mississippi Valley is the different kinds of land- 

 ings. On the tidal waterways of the Atlantic slope conditions 

 require wharves to be "built to enable boats to land and freight to be 

 handled. This requirement naturally limits the landings to such 

 places as regularly have traffic enough to justify the expense of 

 building such a wharf. In the Mississippi Valley wharves are not 

 only unnecessary for purposes of landing but are practically impos- 

 sible to locate properly. The boat makes a landing by simply run- 

 ning alongshore and letting down the outer end of the landing stage, 

 so that any part of a river bank which has no unusual obstruction 

 may be taken as a landing. The great difference between the highest 

 water level and the lowest and the uncertainty of the rise and fall 

 of the river make it practically impossible to use fixed wharves at the 

 river landings of the Mississippi Valley. However, wharf boats are 

 estabfished at principal landings and serve the purpose of a fixed wharf; 

 and, since they rise and fall with the water level, they are in the 

 right position to receive a steamboat alongside at any stage of the river. 



The conditions which enable steamboats to stop at almost any 

 unobstructed part of the bank maks it possible for many farms on 

 navigable rivers like those of the Mississippi Valley to have their own 

 landings. On some rivers the landings actually used by steamboats 

 are scarcely a mils apart, so that the entire country within hauling 

 distance of the river has a large number of shipping points from 

 which to select. 



Convenient means of transfer between boat and. rail are arranged 

 at some terminals and at some intermediate landuigs as well. Rail- 

 road tracks, in some cases, are laid convenient to the steamboat 

 landings and mechanical devices are used to facihtate transfer of 

 freight from one carrier to another. There are many instances, of 

 course, wherein improvement in transfer facihties is much needed, 

 where the railroad tracks are inconveniently distant from the steam- 

 boat landing, and where few or no mechanical devices, other than 



