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 traffic. 
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 
established 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 mak3 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 mile 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 landings as well. Rail- 
road tracks, in some cases, are laid convenient to the steamboat 
landings and mechanical devices are used to facilitate transfer of 
freight from one carrier to another. There are many instances, of 
course, wherein improvement in transfer facilities is much needed, 
where the railroad tracks are inconveniently distant from the steam- 
boat landing, and where few or no mechanical devices, other than 
