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charging, the loaded skids are re- moved quickly, 60 to 75 cases at a time. The transportation unit, the barge, is kept transporting, the purpose for which it was designed, instead of serving also as a warehouse while being tied up at terminals waiting on an obsolete method of cargo han- dling. The rapid handling of cargo is pos- sible because the cargo is moved in large units and because power is used to move the large units. Power moving means economical moving be- cause one man with a lift truck can pick up a load of 1% to three tons and carry it at a speed of 500 feet per minute. A man working with a two-wheel hand truck will carry 500 pounds. 150: feet a minute. . The hand trucker will pick up his load in about five seconds and drop it in three seconds. The power truck picks up a load from six to 12 times heavier in four seconds and drops it in the same time. The power unit with these im- portant elements in its favor does more work an hour. Assuming a load of 3500 pounds, the lift truck will handle, on a 100-foot run, 196 tons an hour, as compared with 11.5 tons an hour for the hand truck. With a capacity load of 6000 pounds, 336 tons will be carried an hour. This is 29 times as much as one man han- dles with a hand truck. Conveyors at Houston Used for Bagged Cargo ELT and slat conveyors are used on wharf No. 4 at Houston to handle bags of coffee, sugar and oth- er commodities from shipside to the warehouse in the rear of the transit shed, a distance of about 300 feet. The shed floor has an elevation of 11 feet above mean low water, while the warehouse has an elevation of approximately 35 feet above mean low water, so that the conveyor must elevate as well as transport. The usual method on wharf No. 4 in handling bags of coffee, etce., from Shipside to warehouse is to drop Slingloads on platform or on shed floor. From either of these places the bags are handled by two long- Shoremen to portable belt or slat conveyors which carry the bags to the lower end of the main line slat con- veyor referred to above, which make possible lifting the bags up from the dock to the warehouse elevation. The end of the conveyor is depressed to floor level for convenience in dump- ng cargo from the belt conveyor or from trucks. Two to four portable conveyors are used alongside the ship according to the number of hatches being worked. The warehouse end of conveyor is ap- proximately four feet above floor to facilitate the handling to belt con- UDUUULQUNNUQQNUUNUOLUAUUUUUALANAANATIETL One of the Fay Transportation Co’ s. barges oper- ating on the Sacra- mentoriver and San Francisco bay. The elevator’ installed equalizes differ- ences in water levels at various docks. UVNUQUQNNTUNQOOUOUOOUUOUUOUUUUAALUULOUOHNIUHD veyor or to trucks in operation. The portable belt conveyors at the warehouse are used to distribute to the various sections of the ware- house. In some cases the conveyors have been extended to the south end of the warehouse, a distance of about 400 feet. Hand trucks are used when neces- sary for distributing to the pile. The marks are separated at this stage of the operation. This is the reverse of the usual practice of separating marks at shipside, but it has worked very well in practice. The belt and_ slat conveyors working together can handle from 4000 to 4500 bags of sugar an hour and from 2500 to 3000 bags of cof- fee in an hour. The first conveyor installation was made in 1922. The conveyor arrange- ment was decided on by the de- signer of the terminal because be- tween 80 to 90 per cent of the cargo was expected to move from ship into the warehouse. It was deemed ad- visable to sort the cargo in the warehouse and not on the dock, re- sulting in reduced handling and avoidance of delay to ship. Houston as a Passenger Port LTHOUGH inland, 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, Port Hous- ton is gaining some recognition as a passenger port. During 1930 not less than 50 ships carrying passengers AUVQULUUDUUUGTUAQUOUAUUETOOULUU OO EAEMTHAATT At Houston, Tex. conveyors are set up on the wide apron of the wharf for moving bag car- go from shipside to the place reserved for it in the ware- house. {YUSNNAEEDUUUUULOLGQUEOEOLUUUOUALAEEEEOOUD MARINE REview—March, 1931 There are four lines routing passenger ships through stopped at Houston. Houston. In addition special pas- senger ships frequently make the port. Passengers from over the entire Southwest make reservations for for- eign travel through the port of Houston. In addition to the prin- cipal European ports, passage may be booked for South and Central Ameri- can ports. Houston has become a meeting ground for the old world and the new. Every year hundreds come by water to Houston. The first large passenger liner to navigate the Houston ship channel was the LAFAYETTE in 1925. The liner came to Houston to take a chamber of commerce delegation on a West Indies cruise. At the time of the huge liner’s visit the pessimis- tically inclined declared it would run aground coming up the channel. The predictions proved groundless. Since 1925 passenger trade at the port has developed steadily. The Portland Terminal Co. reports that the chisel trucks provided for the new terminal together with increased slingloads has increased discharging of bales of woodpulp from a former maximum of 900 tons in eight hours to 1500 tons in eight hours. The new terminal at Portland is provided with rest rooms and ade- quate toilet facilities for longshore- men and dock workers. 45