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16 in the single item of ore over 13,000,- 000 long tons, and her sister city across the bay over 7,000,000 tons more. "Of our total population, approxi- mately 5 1/3 per cent live, not mind you in the states bordering, but in| the cities and towns located along the shores of the great lakes of more than 8,000 inhabitants. This has been said to be a material item showing the wisdom of providence in locating im- portant water highways at the doors of those who have commerce to 'transact. "At the expense of trenching on your time, let me give you some fig- ures which from time to time you have doubtless heard or read, with some illustrations. The point I am leading to is of the influence of these waterways upon the nation and the world. I have spoken of De Graff, which carried, so far as I can learn, the largest single cargo of grain ever carried in the world. But hers - exceeded by some thousands of bush- els the previous cargo of another lake steamer, which in turn exceeded an earlier cargo by a thousand bushels, and so: on back. "Following the report of the com- missioner of navigation, one-third of all the tonnage under the American flag is employed on the great lakes. As illustrative of the progress of transportation there is a comparison not intended to be odious may be il- lustrative. In the last fiscal year of ships of any description over 1,000 tons custom house measurement, there were built steel and wooden steamers, ferry boats and schooners in other parts of the United States, total of 18 in number with tonnage of 41,355 tons. In the same period on the lakes there were built 40 steel steamers, each upward of a 1,000 tons of aggre- gate custom house tonnage of 252,- 366 tons. It may not be out of place to say that more than 30 of these ex- ceeded 5,000 tons customs house measurements and that 27 of them exceeded 6,000 'tons and half of them about 7,660 tons. The custom house measurement, it must be borne in mind, represents only something more than one-half the actual dead weight carrying capacity of our lake ships at the draught which they can carry througl the shallower connect- ing waters between the lakes them- selves. Therefore, it is that a steel steamer of the prevailing type, say from 556 to over 600 feet length, 54 to 60 ft. beam and 32 ft. depth car- ries 10,000, or more, long tons of iron ore on a draught of a little over! "TAE MaRINE. REVIEW 18 ft to which connecting waters con- sign her, and 12 to 14,000 tons in such a trade as between Escanaba and the great steel works at the head of Lake Michigan in which trade the steamer is not required to encounter the restricted draft compelled in the connection between Lake Superior and Lake Huron and between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, by reason of natural conditions which I have not the time to expla:n but must be obvious from the chart. "Concurrently has come develop- ment of instrumentalities for the rapid handling of cargo, so that one of these great cargoes of iron ore or grain can be, and some time is, loaded in a couple of hours and unloaded within five hours, or to speak of or- dinary practice such a cargo is com- monly loaded in a few hours and dis- charged within a day. Covering a voyage between Lake Erie ports and the head of Lake Superior such a ves- sel makes a round trip in from 7 to 12 days according as she goes without cargo one way or loaded each way and subject to congestion at either terminal. "Such has been the progress and de- mand for transportation, which I al- ways regard as another term for com- merce, or indeed for civilization, that the railroads are so choked, especially. at their terminals, that they are, and have been, exhausting every device that ingenuity, involving concurrence of action between railroads and ship- pers, can suggest to prevent mileage service of the average freight car be- ing reduced below the already alarm- ing point, said to be within past ten years from 30 miles to 20 miles per day. "he great Jakes system is fur- nishing in its cheap water transpor- tation about one-third as much _ton- mile service in its eight months season as the combined service of all the railroads of the United States in the year. "The average ton-mile cost by our railroads, which is, generally speaking, half or less the cost in Europe, runs over 8 mills. The favorably lo- cated and best equipped may come down to one-half of this but not lower unless we regard a very few excep- tional cases to which a general rule could not be applied. The ton-mile cost in the great lakes haul is about One-tenth the average of the rail haul and say one-fifth that of the. most fa- vored rail routes with the exceptions stated. "While Henry Clay protested, strong helpful men of business forced a pass- age between the east and the magni- ficent northwest of the United States and Canada which we see today. The state of Michigan was induced to take upon herself the building of a lock at the Sault. To accomplish the cher- ished idea it is said that some of these men traveled more than half of 250 miles on snow shoes through a winter wilderness to attend a meeting, lest the project fail or falter. "It did not fail because it was the destiny of the great American and Canadian northwest to become the chief grainery of the world. It was the destiny of 'the United States to be- come the imperial factor in iron and steel and in industrial pursuits. And the destiny of the United States has never yet halted for lack of human in- struments. "So the Indian legend that Gargan- tua, the great chief and demi-god, when he found the waters of Lake Superior rising, put on his great boots and walked around the lake until he found at the Sault that the great white bea- ver had built a dam, and that he kicked' away the dam and opened up the in- ' tercourse between-the lower lakes and the great northwest is not true. It was those sturdy men of Michigan and the east who foreseeing the almost boundless posibilities of the Northwest broke the barrier with the prosaic lock and canal while ever since their grate- ful sucessors have improved and en- larged till now through this gateway in the two-thirds of the year allotted to our northern navigation there will have passed in this season of 1907 al- most, if not quite, 50,000,000 tons of cargo; nearly four times that through the Suez; nearly six times the esti- mate for the Panama in its tenth year of operation, nearly all as yet under the stars and stripes; and doing what? "Developing by this grand waterway, improved by the wisdom of the gov- ernment, stimulating and encouraging as it has developed until the actual saving in freight has in the past single year exceeded all the cost of all the improvements beginning with the first lock in 1855 and throughout the entire chain of lakes. Stimulating until it has so grown and influenced the trade, the production, the manufacture of everything that no man, woman or child in this country but has felt and enjoyed the beneficent influence and results while people in far' off lands have been distinctly benefited. "A single illustration I may be per- mitted. From Lake Superior comes this year more than 40,000,000 of iron Ore so rich in the metal that it will