THE SAILING SHIP AND 



CANAL 



THE PANAMA 



By James Page, U. S. Hydrographic Office 



IN the minds of a majority of those 

 whose lives have been spent in the 

 interior, and to a certain though 

 less widespread extent among those 

 whose daily vocation has brought them 

 in touch with the sea, the opinion is 

 current, always expressed in a tone of 

 regret, that the value of the wind as a 

 motive power in transportation by water 

 is no longer worthy of study, and that 

 the sailing ship as a factor in commerce 

 is shortly to take its place on the shelves 

 of the museum of antiquities beside the 

 Roman trireme. No such apprehen- 

 sion need exist. Of the net tonnage of 

 the world quoted in Lloyd's summary 

 for the year iqc>3-'o4, amounting to 

 23,282,000 tons all told, 6,466,000 

 tons, or in the neighborhood of 28 per 

 cent, is still credited to sailing vessels, 

 the number of bottoms being 17,761 

 and 12,182, steam and sail respectively. 



THE UNITED STATES SECOND IN 

 SAILING TONNAGE. 



With regard to flag, the United 

 States, the most progressive among na- 

 tions in the application of machinery, 

 strange to say, stands high in the list 

 in the relative proportion of sail to 

 steam. For this country the figures 

 given are 1,390,000 tons sail and 

 1,566,000 tons steam, respectively, 

 America, in the absolute amount of 

 sailing tonnage, standing far in ad- 

 vance of all other nations, with the 

 single exception of Great Britain, and 

 in the relative amount, as compared 

 with steam, in advance of all save two, 

 Italy and Norway, in both of which 

 latter the total amount of sailing ton- 

 nage still exceeds that of steam. 



An explanation of the erroneous im- 

 pression which exists as to the impor- 



tance of sailing tonnage may be found 

 in the fact that it is in a majority of 

 cases derived from a casual inspection 

 of the merchant fleets in the northern 

 harbors of the Atlantic seaboard — Bos- 

 ton, New York, Philadelphia, and Bal- 

 timore — ports in which the passenger 

 and express traffic exercises a prepon- 

 derating influence. Here, indeed, the 

 eye will often seek, and seek in vain, 

 amid the series of smoke-begrimed fun- 

 nels and uncouth hulls which line the 

 docks, for the taut rigging, the trim 

 spars, and the graceful lines of the clip- 

 per ship. In the more southerly At- 

 lantic ports and along the Pacific coast 

 the sailer is a more frequent visitor. 

 In the fiscal year i9oi-'o2, according 

 to the report of the Bureau of Statistics 

 upon the foreign trade of the United 

 States, the total number of vessels en- 

 tering the port of New York from 

 abroad was 4,127, with a total tonnage 

 of 8,893,000. Of this number, 974, 

 embracing 484,000 tons, were sailing 

 vessels — i. e. , 24 per cent of the whole 

 number of entries, carrying but 5 per 

 cent of the whole tonnage. In the port 

 of Pensacola, on the other hand, one of 

 the most active in the Gulf district, the 

 aggregate number of entries was 344, 

 the total tonnage amounting to 428,000. 

 Of this number, 180 were sailing ves- 

 sels, carrying 140,000 tons — i. e., 52 per 

 cent of the total number of vessels, car- 

 rying 33 per cent of the total tonnage. 

 On the Pacific coast the same general 

 features obtain, although here the con- 

 trast between express and freight ports 

 is by no means so marked. The re- 

 turns for the same year show for the 

 port of San Francisco 580 entries, with 

 a total tonnage of 1,016,000. Of this 

 269 were sailing vessels, with a capacity 



