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6 «MARINE REVIEW. Figures from the Treasury Department. For several months past Mr. C. H. Keep of the Lake Carriers' Association has been éngaged in preparing statistics of lake commerce for the bureau of statistics, treasury department. /The work,which covers the season of 1890, is altogether separate from anything presented in the several bulletins issued by the census bureau. With the permission of the officers of the treasury department, Mr. Keep gives the results of a small portion of this work in a pamphlet on the question of aids to navigation on the lakes just issued by the Lake Carriers' Associ- ation and Cleveland Vessel Owners' Association. The pamphlet is intended to accompany Congressman Taylor's bill for sundry aids to navigation on the lakes and is a very creditable document. It deals with statistics, the resolutions of the recent deep water- ways convention at Detroit, peculiarties of the light-house services on the lakes as detailed in a recent report by Col. William Ludlow of Detroit, and concludes with a brief statement showing the necessity for each of the aids to navigation comprised in the general lake light-house bill. Copies of the pamphlet will be circulated freely in Congress and throughout the lakes. That portion of it relating to statistics contains the followidg : "During the season of navigation of 1890 there was carried on the great lakes 30,299,006 tons of freight. 'To understand this total, one must measure the figures by some familiar standard of comparison. If the freight carried onthe lakes during the year 1890 was loaded into railroad cars of fifteen tons capacity this freight would cover four tracks stretching from San Fran- cisco to New York, with continuous lines of fully loaded cars and there would be a sufficient amount left over to cover in the same way two additional tracks from New York to Chicago. -- The value of this freight was $342,522,290. It was carried an average distance of 566 miles, making the total mileage of the lake traffic for the year 1890, 17,149,237,396 ton miles. The total freight service rendered to the public by all the railroads in the United States, as shown by the second annual report of the stat- istician of the Inter-State Commerce Commission covering the year ended June 30, 1889, was 68,727,223,146 ton miles. The freight service rendered the people of the United States by the traffic of the great lakes during the year 1890 is, therefore, almost exactly one-quarter of the total freight service rendered to the public by all the railroads of the United States. "Steamers of the largest size are increasing in number on the great lakes with marvelous rapidity. Dec. 1, 1886, there were on the lakes only twenty-one steamers having a registered tonnage of over 1,500 tons. On Dec. 1, 1891, there were 126 such steaniers. On Dec. 1, 1886 there were on the lakes*only six steel vessels with a total tonnage of 6,459 tons with a valuation of $694,000. On Dec. 1, 1891, there were eighty-nine steel ves- sels with a total tonnage of 127,624 tons and a valuation of ¢14- 502,500. 'Thirty-two steel vessels are under contract to be built a lake ship-yards before the opening of navigation in the spring of 1892 'The saving to the public from lake transportation is best shown by comparing it with the cheapest known rail transporta tion. According to the report of the St. Mary's canal, 9,041,213 tons of freight passed through the canal in the year 1890, which was carried at an average cost to the shipper of 1.3 mills per ton per mile. The average cost to the shipper of rail transportation in the United States is stated by the statistician of the Inter- State Commerce Commission in his second annual report at 9.22 mills per, ton mile. The Erie Railroad, one of the largest coal carriers in the United States, collects from shippers on its coal trafic 5.4 mills per ton per mile. The Michigan Central Rail- road, according to its last annual report, collects from shippers on its through traffic 5.02 mills per ton per mile. 'The last named figure represents the lowest cost of rail transportation in the United States. It isthe charge exacted from shippers by one of the best equipped lines in the country on its through freight on which it has a long carriage and which consists in great part of exactly the same class of freight that is carried on the great lakes. Ifthe freight carried through the St. Mary's Falls canal by water had been carried by rail at the lowest cost of rail trans- portation (5.02 mills per ton per mile), it would have cost the harbor expenditures on the great lakes from the year 1789 to the -is therefore, higher than the average cost of lake traffic." 'on ore, grain and coal freight rates for a long period of years in readiness to transfer to the United States for the purpose of shipper $36,182,428. The saving to the public ina single year on Lake Superior traffic by the use of water transportation was $26,710,213. Applying the same comparison to the entire freight traffic on the lakes, we find that the freight carried on the great lakes during the year 1890, if carried by rail at 5.02 mills per ton per mile, would have cost the shipper $86,088, 171, 3 Carried by water at 1.3 mills per ton per mile, the entire lake traffic of 1890 was carried at a cost to the shipper of $22,294,008, a Water transportation on the lakes, therefore, saved the public in a single year $63,794,163, or nearly double the entire river anc present time. In this comparison, every advantage in method has been given the rail route. The lowest cost of land transpor- tation has been taken, a cost little more than half the average cost of land transportation as shown by the report of the statisti- cian to the Inter-State Commerce Commission. On the contrary, the figure (1.3 mills per ton per mile) adopted for the cost of lake © transportation is the cost of lake transportation on Lake Supe- rior traffic where there is the least available draft of water,which Remarkable Comparison in Freight Rates. ; 'It is probable that the question of contract freight rates on iron ore demands more earnest attention from vessel owners and -- shippers each winter than any other feature of the general lake freight market. The figures presented in the REVIEW last week -- past were, therefore, very interesting, and have since been dis- . cussed in various ways. The most remarkable results taken from the summary of rates were the average contract and "wild" rates on ore from Escanaba and Marquette, which showed a difference -- in either case of only 1 cent a ton in twenty years past and only © 4 a fraction of a cent in ten years past. A typographical error in the figures last week would make it appear that there was a differance of 9 cents a ton in the averages from Escanaba but such was not the case. Following are the averages for twenty -- and ten years: a _ ---ESCANABA.-- MARQUETTE. Contract. Wild. Contract. Wild. -- Average for twenty years past........ $1.305 $1.295 $1.710 - $1.700 3am Average for ten years past............ 1.050) ai) Oy7 1.258 1.268 The conclusion drawn from these figures by most parties -- interested in the ore trade is that the vessel owner will profit by -- accepting season contracts every time there is a margin above a fair return on his investment and by not contracting when such -- a return is not in sight. : aaa Dry Dock at St. Mary's Falls Canal. "The proposition to locate a dry dock in immediate prox- imity to the lockage system is as objectionable as ever" says Gen. O. M. Poe in his annual report, "but ifit should be decided to do ~ so, then the location heretofore referred to, at the eastern end of the area transferred from the Fort Brady military reservation to the canal reservation, is the least objectionable, but the construc- tion of a pier in front of the Fort Brady reservation has been completed, and a portion of this work would have to be removed, thus increasing by $20,000 the probable cost of a dry dock, and the estimate therefore should be increased accordingly. The amount (estimated) required for the construction of a dry dock ~ at this point is $343,872, which should be added to the $65,000 -- (more or less) which is understood the State of Michigan holds constructing adry dock. It may not be improper to add that I am strongly opposed to the construction ofa drv dock to be oper- -- 3 ated in connection with the canal." -- Marine publications and the shipping fraternity throughout the country ask that owners of vessels give more attention to -- naming their property. Great confusion in the commercial com- -- munity would be avoided if owners would remember that a name is of such importance to a ship that each vessel should have on€ different from every other. Nowhere is there more need of re- 4 gard for this rule than on the lakes, with vessel movements re-_ a ported daily, and still it is often disregarded.