CHAPTER IX.

STEAM COMMERCE OF THE GREAT LAKES.

United States and Canadian Commerce of the Great Lakes—The Sault Ste. Marie Ship Canals—The Erie Canal—Transportation Business—The Elevator—Deeper Waterways Commissions—The Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal.

During the last quarter of a century the commerce of the Great Lakes—the United States commerce especially—has grown with a rapidity almost exceeding belief. It has become enormous! At the present time it is stated on competent authority that the steam tonnage of these inland seas largely exceeds the combined tonnage of this character in all other parts of the United States put together. Not to speak of the vast amount of shipping employed in the iron, the coal, and the lumber trade, the Lake Superior grain and flour shipments for 1896 were 121,750,000 bushels. The Lake Michigan grain and flour shipments for the same year were 273,820,000 bushels, together making 395,570,000 bushels of grain and flour shipped in one year from these two quarters! It is difficult to realize the magnitude of such a statement. Mr. Keep, already quoted, in his report for 1890 puts it strikingly when he says: “If the freight carried on the Great Lakes in the United States coastwise and foreign trade during the year 1890 were loaded into railway cars of average size and capacity, the cars so loaded would cover 13,466 miles of railroad track.” The Commissioners appointed by the Canadian Government to meet with a similar Committee appointed by the United States Government to consider the subject of international and deeper waterways, preface their report by alluding to the commerce of the Great Lakes in these terms: “It is impossible to convey, within reasonable space, an adequate idea of the extraordinary[49] development of inland water transportation on the Upper Lakes—which for rapidity, extent, economy and efficiency has no counterpart even on the ocean. More than half of the best steamships of the United States are imprisoned above Niagara Falls, and more than half of the tonnage built in the United States in 1896 was launched upon the lakes.” This inland water commerce has built up twelve cities on the southern shores above Niagara, five of which have over 200,000 population, and one of them over a million. Within these limits there are twenty-seven dry docks, the largest of which is on Lake Superior and is 560 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 18 feet depth of water. There are sixty-three life-saving stations upon these lakes, ten of which are Canadian. “Unusual prosperity has stimulated ship-building to such an extent that there are now in course of construction at the various lake shipyards, sixty-five vessels, thirty of which are steel freight steamers which will average 400 feet in length and 4,000 tons capacity—costing in all $9,000,000.”[50]

Up to a comparatively recent date the bulk of the lakes commerce was done by sailing vessels. Every town of any importance had its little fleet of schooners. As time went on, the vessels increased in size, and eventually a very fine class of three-masted schooners, with some brigs, barquentines, and even full-rigged barques, were employed in the carrying trade. One of the largest of these was the barque _Utica_, of 550 tons, which sailed on the Buffalo and Chicago route in the forties. A few of these clipper schooners may still be met with, but they are rapidly being supplanted by iron and steel steamships of great size, such as the _Maryland_, the _Owego_, the _E. C. Pope_, and the _Manitou_, representatives of fleets of first-class steamships, ranging from 300 to 350 feet in length, over 1,900 tons register, with triple expansion engines, a speed of from fourteen to sixteen miles an hour, and a carrying capacity of 120,000 to 125,000 bushels of grain. These, and many others like them, were accounted “queens” a few years ago; they are fine ships still, but there are much larger and finer than they now.

The _Manitou_ here represented is one of the finest ships of her class on the lakes, built in 1893 by the Chicago Ship-building Company. Her hull is of steel, length over all 295 feet, breadth of beam 42 feet, and depth of hold 22 feet. Her average draught of water is 15 feet. She has triple expansion engines, a single four-bladed screw propeller 13 feet in diameter. Her gross tonnage is 2,944 tons. She is handsomely fitted up with sleeping accommodations for four hundred passengers, has a freight capacity of 1,500 tons, and develops a speed of eighteen miles an hour. Her route is between Chicago and Sault Ste. Marie, where she connects with the Lake Superior lines. She cost $300,000.

The _James Watt_, the first of the Rockefeller fleet and the largest steamship on the lakes, is 426 feet long, 48 feet beam, and 29 feet deep. She cost $260,000, and will carry from 4,000 to 6,000 tons of ore, according as she is trimmed to draw 14 or 18 feet of water. The _Empire City_, owned by the Zenith Transportation Company, is of the same dimensions, less one foot in depth. She is now the largest grain carrier on the lakes, having capacity for 213,000 bushels. The Minnesota Iron Company have a fleet of fourteen steamships, each carrying from 100,000 to 180,000 bushels of grain. The Lehigh Valley Transportation Company own a fleet of large and powerful steel freight steamers which ply between Buffalo and Chicago. These are but a few of the many transportation companies that do business on the Great Lakes. As to the vessels at present employed in the trade, it is safe to say that they are to be regarded only as the precursors of a still larger class of freight steamers that will navigate these waters when the contemplated twenty-one foot channel shall have been established from Lake Superior to Buffalo. At present there is a navigable channel of 17½ feet all the way.

Many of the large steamers take a number of barges in tow, and in this way enormous quantities of grain are sometimes moved by a single shipment. The _Appomattox_, for example, with three consorts in tow, recently left Duluth with a combined cargo of 482,000 bushels, or 14,460 tons of wheat. Assuming the average yield of that cereal to be twenty bushels to the acre, this single shipment represented the produce of 24,100 acres!

The Northern Steamship Company of Buffalo has perhaps the finest fleet of steamers on the Great Lakes, consisting of eight steamships. Six of these are steel freight and emigrant ships of 2,500 tons each. They are named the _Northern Light_, _Northern Wave_, _Northern King_, _Northern Queen_, the _North Star_, and the _North Wind_. The other two, the _North-West_ and the _North-Land_, are exclusively passenger ships, up-to-date in every respect. They are identical in size, being each 386 feet long, 44 moulded breadth, and 26 feet in depth. Their gross tonnage is 5,000 tons apiece. They have quadruple expansion engines of 7,000 indicated horse-power. The boilers are worked at a pressure of 275 pounds to the square inch, and use up 70 tons of water per hour. The twin screws are 13 feet in diameter and 18 feet pitch, make 120 revolutions per minute, and drive the ships at a speed of from 22 to 25 statute miles an hour, as may be required. The bunkers hold 1,000 tons of coal. A double bottom, 42 inches deep, extends the whole length of the ship, and is utilized for adjustable water ballast. Luxurious accommodation is provided for five hundred first-class and forty second-class passengers. Nearly twenty-six miles of electric wire are used in conducting the subtle fluid for 1,200 lights. The electric search-light has one hundred thousand candle-power. The refrigerating plant, besides creating ample cold storage, makes one thousand pounds of ice per day for the ship’s use. The grand saloon is, in American parlance, “a magnificent achievement.” The routes of these twin ships is from Buffalo to Duluth, at the head of Lake Superior, a distance of 1,065 miles, each of them making the round trip in a week. The fare for the round trip is $30 for transportation, meals and staterooms being charged extra.

For many years two causes prevented the building of vessels of such large dimensions as those just described for lake navigation. One of these was the insufficient size of the lock at Sault Ste. Marie, and the other was the shallowness of the water on the St. Clair flats and at other points. The former difficulty disappeared in 1881 when the first of the large locks was opened at the Sault; the second difficulty was overcome by the Northern Steamship Company in the peculiar construction of their vessels with a water ballasting system that permits of sinking the ship to the depth required for navigating the deep waters of the lakes and of floating them over the shoals and bars that obstruct the navigation. This ingenious device, however, can only be regarded as a temporary expedient, pending the action of the United States Government, which contemplates the making of a twenty-one foot channel at all points where the shallows occur. This is a measure felt to be due to the lakes’ marine, which has already done so much to develop the resources of the North-West, especially the mineral resources, which would otherwise have lain comparatively dormant. “The United States have expended some $12,000,000 in widening and deepening channels, which has already been more than repaid by the rapid development of commerce. The largest item in the lakes’ traffic is the transportation of iron—the richest ores are now being mined along a line of coast of one thousand miles, dotted with manufacturing towns.”[51]

It helps one to realize the immensity of the lakes’ traffic to learn that the number of vessels that cleared from the district of Chicago in 1893 was 8,789, with a gross tonnage of 5,449,470 tons—actually a larger tonnage than cleared from the port of Liverpool in 1892.[52] The tonnage passing down the Detroit River from lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron, during the seven or eight months of navigation, is, by official statements, greater than the entire foreign and coastwise trade of London and Liverpool combined in twelve months. It is estimated by competent experts to be three times greater than the foreign trade of the port of New York, and to exceed the aggregate foreign trade of all the seaports of the United States by 10,000,000 tons!

SAULT STE. MARIE SHIP CANALS.

To accommodate the vast volume of traffic emanating from Lake Superior ports, magnificent canals have been constructed on either side of the St. Mary River, which connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron. These works, the most remarkable of their kind in existence, have reached their present dimension by a succession of enlargements and a large outlay of money. The first canal on the western or American side of the river was constructed by a joint stock company formed in 1853, who undertook to construct it for the State of Michigan upon receiving therefore a grant of 750,000 acres of land. The work was completed in 1855, and from that date the commerce of Lake Superior may be said to have had any appreciable existence. The opening of the canal was, as it were, the opening of a sluice-gate through which a flood of commerce was soon to roll.

The first canal cost about $1,000,000. It was a little over a mile in length. Its width at the water line was 100 feet, and its depth 12 feet. There were two locks, each 350 feet long and 70 feet wide. The growth of traffic and the increase in the size of the lake vessels soon rendered it apparent that the canal must be enlarged. In 1870 the United States Government made its first appropriation for deepening the canal to 16 feet and increasing its lockage. A new lock was built, 550 feet in length by 80 feet in width, and 18 feet lift, at a cost of $2,404,124.33. The work was completed in 1881. Its opening was followed by an enormous increase of commerce—so much so that it soon became quite inadequate to the traffic. A still further enlargement was decided upon, and was completed in 1896, at a cost of about $5,000,000. The new lock occupies the site of the two old locks of 1855, and is 800 feet long, 100 feet wide, and has 21 feet depth of water on the sill. It is officially known as the St. Mary’s Falls Canal.

* * * * *

So long ago as the close of last century the North-West Fur Company had constructed a rude canal on the Canadian side, with locks, adapted for the passage of loaded canoes without breaking bulk. Though late of construction, a ship canal had long been in contemplation by the Canadian Government, and the time came when, owing to the increase of traffic, it could no longer be delayed. This great work was completed and opened for traffic on September 9th, 1895, at a cost of some $3,500,000. The Canadian lock is 900 feet long, 60 feet wide, 20 feet 3 inches depth of water on the sill, and 18 feet lift, affording room for three large vessels at one time. The length of the canal proper, between the extreme ends of the entrance piers, is only 5,967 feet, but including the excavated channels of approach it is about 18,100 feet. The American canal is a little over a mile in length. The locks of both are unsurpassed for their size and solidity, as well as for the completeness of their mechanical appliances.

An official report, compiled by the Chief Engineer of the St. Mary’s Falls Canal (United States), contains a detailed statement of the commerce of that canal for each year, from 1855 to 1895, and goes far to substantiate what has already been said as to the magnitude of the lakes’ commerce. The number of vessels that passed through in 1895 was 17,956, with a registered tonnage of 16,806,781 tons. The number of sailing vessels was 4,790; of steamers, 12,495; and of unregistered craft, 671. The number of passengers conveyed from lake to lake was 31,656. As to the cargoes of the vessels, these are a few of the chief items: 2,574,362 net tons of coal; 8,902,302 barrels of flour; 46,218,250 bushels of wheat; 8,328,694 bushels of other grain; 107,452 tons of copper; 8,062,209 tons of iron ore; 740,700,000 feet of sawed lumber; 100,337 tons of manufactured and pig iron; 269,919 barrels of salt—in all, 15,062,580 net tons of freight. The freight traffic of the St. Mary’s Canal, in seven months of 1895, was more than twice that of the Suez Canal, which is open all the year. During the year 1897 it was much greater than in any previous year, the registered tonnage being 17,619,933, the tons of freight 18,218,411, and the number of passengers 40,213.

The gradual development of steam navigation on Lake Superior is shown in a table of parallel columns, extending over thirty years. In 1864 the sailing vessels that used the canal were three times as numerous as the steamers; but in 1895 the steamers were three times as numerous as the sailing vessels, and they had increased enormously in tonnage. The number of sailing vessels built on the Great Lakes in 1896 was nineteen; in that year there were built _seventy-five_ steamers, aggregating 75,743 tons register, and of these thirty-five were built of steel, with a combined tonnage of 63,589 tons. The principal ship-building yards on the Upper Lakes are at Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Bay City, Milwaukee, Chicago and Superior. At most of these points there are plants for the construction of iron and steel vessels. It is said that Cleveland is the largest ship-building port, and also the largest iron ore market in the United States.

The transportation of iron ore, it will be noticed, forms a large element in the commerce of Lake Superior. Not only is the ore found in great abundance in that region, but it is the best in quality and the most in demand of any in the United States. Over 100,000,000 tons of this ore have been mined in the lake region within the last forty years. Owing to its great bulk and weight it is nearly all carried by water; the estimated capital engaged in mining and transporting the ore to the 120 furnaces in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Buffalo and Chicago is about $234,000,000.[53] But for the number and the size of the steamers thus employed, and the facilities now in use for loading and unloading them, the trade could not exist. The largest vessels in the iron ore trade are regularly loaded in three or four hours; 2,500 tons of ore have been loaded into a vessel of that capacity in an hour and three-quarters.[54]

THE ERIE CANAL.

This great artificial waterway, lying wholly in the State of New York, and under State management, connects Buffalo with the Hudson River at Albany. Although of comparatively limited capacity, it is to-day the most formidable rival the St. Lawrence route has to compete with in the transportation of freight from the west to the seaboard. The Erie was first opened for traffic in the same year as the first Lachine Canal (1825). It was originally 363 miles long, with eighty-three locks, each 90 feet by 15 feet, and 4 feet depth of water.

The first enlargement of this canal was commenced in 1836 and completed in 1862, at a cost of $44,465,414, making the entire cost up to the last-named date over $50,000,000. It is now 351¾ miles in length, 70 feet wide on the surface and 56 feet wide at the bottom having 72 locks, each 110 feet by 18 feet, and 7 feet deep. The limit of the canal for navigation, however, is only 6 feet of water, restricting its use to vessels of 240 tons capacity, say, 8,000 bushels of wheat.

Navigation has hitherto been carried on by horse traction—the boats running in pairs—and by small steam tugs towing three or four boats, after them. The tug often pushes one boat ahead and tows the others behind. In this latter way a load of 900 tons will be moved at an average pace of about 2½ miles per hour while in motion. Including lockages, the distance from Buffalo to New York may be covered in nine or ten days. The boats are about 98 feet long and 17 feet 5 inches wide. They make on the average about seven round trips in the season. The average price received for the transportation of wheat in this manner from Buffalo to New York is about 3½ cents per bushel, which allows a fair margin of profit to the boatman.

Experiments have been made for the application of electricity to the traction of the boats, with promise of further development. In the meantime considerable importance is attached to the installation of electric telephone communication from one end of the line to the other, whereby instant communication can be had with the section superintendents, the lock tenders and other officials. The system is devised solely for the use of the canal officials, and will be invaluable in sudden emergencies caused by accidents to the boats, leaks, breaks, or other disasters that may occur and interfere with the navigation of the canal.

For some time past western shippers have been testing the feasibility of establishing a through line of transportation from the Great Lakes to New York by way of the Erie Canal without the delay and expense of transhipment at Buffalo. In 1895 this idea was worked out by the construction of a fleet of steel canal boats, consisting of one steamer and five consorts, by the Cleveland Steel Canal Boat Company of Ohio. Several fleets of this kind have since been put in operation, and the projectors believe that they have demonstrated the practicability of thus carrying freight to the seaboard from any of the western lakes at a fair margin of profit and in successful competition with the railways. These steel barges have encountered severe storms on the lakes without any serious damage to the boats or their cargoes. The cost of the tug boat is about $15,000, and of each consort about $6,000. The time occupied by the steel fleet from Cleveland to New York has been from ten to twelve days.

The second enlargement of the Erie Canal, now in progress and nearing completion, will afford greatly increased facilities for transportation, by increasing the depth from 7 to 9 feet and doubling and lengthening all the locks. There will be no increase in the width of the locks nor in the length of the boats navigating the canal, but two boats (which form a horse-tow) will be locked through at once, and by the locks being doubled, side by side, no boats will have to wait for others coming in an opposite direction. The cargo will be increased by the greater depth of water in boats of the same size, more deeply loaded, and the traction will be so improved that boats will run easier and faster. The amount of freight carried on the Erie Canal—east and west—in the year 1896 was 2,742,438 tons.[55] The amount transported on the Welland Canal for that year was 1,279,987 tons.

CANADIAN COMMERCE ON THE GREAT LAKES.

Notwithstanding the large amount of money expended by the Canadian Government upon its unrivalled St. Lawrence canals and the deepening of its waterways, the volume of western traffic that comes this way is as yet disappointingly small. The great bulk of the trade in western produce, Canadian and American, finds its way to the seaboard in American vessels by way of Buffalo, Oswego and Ogdensburg to New York and Boston. What effect the deepening of the canals to fourteen feet will have on this deviation from the “natural outlet” remains to be seen.

From a statement kindly furnished by Mr. T. F. Taylor, Marine Inspector at Kingston, it appears that the number of companies in Canada having steamers and other craft engaged in the commerce of the Great Lakes is twenty-four. Three of these go no farther than the head of Lake Ontario, three extend their operations to Lake Erie, five to Lake Huron, and thirteen to Lake Superior. Five steamers are employed on Lake Erie, thirteen on Lake Huron, twenty-six navigate the waters of Lake Superior. About one-half of these steamers are first-class steel freight and passenger vessels of from 1,200 to 2,600 tons each. A few of them pass through the Welland Canal and have their cargoes transhipped into barges at Kingston or Prescott. Others connect with lines of railway at Sault Ste. Marie, Owen Sound, Collingwood, Windsor and Sarnia. Occasionally one or two of the smaller ones run through to Montreal. Besides the steamers, there are employed in the lakes’ grain trade twenty-one lake barges, each of 50,000 bushels capacity, and fourteen tug steamers. There is also a fleet of about sixty-two sailing vessels trading between the Upper Lakes and Kingston, and some sixty or seventy barges employed in transporting grain from that port to Montreal.

On the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway the company formed a line of freight and passenger steamers of their own, consisting of the _Algoma_, the _Alberta_ and the _Athabasca_. The _Algoma_ had sailed the lakes previous to this under different names. The other two are fine steel ships, built by Aitken & Co. of Glasgow, in 1883. They are each 270 feet long and 2,300 tons burthen, fitted with all modern improvements in their machinery and with excellent accommodation for a large number of passengers. They commenced their work in 1884 and have been very successful and popular. The _Algoma_ was unfortunately wrecked off Isle Royale in Lake Superior in November, 1885, during a fearful snow-storm that swept over the lake, when many lives were lost. She was replaced by the _Manitoba_, a very fine vessel built of steel at Owen Sound by the Polson Ship-building Company. The _Manitoba_ is the largest Canadian steamer on the lakes, being 300 feet long and 2,600 tons burthen. By means of these steamers a regular and most satisfactory summer service is maintained once a week from Windsor and Sarnia, and twice a week from Owen Sound and Sault Ste. Marie to Fort William. Their capacity for the transportation of grain is about 400,000 bushels a month.

The Montreal Transportation Company, founded in 1868, is the oldest of the existing forwarding companies, and does the largest amount of business. Their fleet consists at present of three steamers, six tug-boats, six lake barges and thirty-two river barges. Two of the steamers, the _Bannockburn_ and the _Rosemount_, are first-class steel ships, built at Newcastle-on-Tyne, about 250 feet in length, 40 feet beam, with a carrying capacity of 75,000 bushels of wheat. The lake barges play an important part as “consorts” to the steamers. They resemble in appearance so many large dismasted schooners, and serve their purpose economically and well so long as they keep in tow, but when they break loose, as they occasionally do when overtaken by a gale of wind, they become unmanageable and are apt to come to grief. This company with its present equipment handles about 250,000 bushels of grain per month.

The North-West Transportation Company, dating from 1871, and otherwise known as the “Beatty Line,” has two fine passenger and freight steamers, the _Monarch_ and the _United Empire_, of 1,600 tons and 1,400 tons respectively, forming a weekly line from Windsor and Sarnia to Fort William and Duluth, in connection with the Grand Trunk Railway; they forward about 200,000 bushels of grain per month.

The Hagarty and Crangle Line, running between ports at the head of lakes Superior and Michigan to ports on the River St. Lawrence, has two large steel steamers, the _Algonquin_ and the _Rosedale_, on the Upper Lakes, and the steamer _Persia_ which plies between the head of Lake Ontario and Montreal. Hamilton has three “Merchants Lines” in the Upper Lakes’ shipping business—Mackay’s, Fairgreaves’, and Thomas Myles & Sons, owning in addition to other lake craft such fine steel and composite steamers as the _Sir L. Tilley_, _Lake Michigan_, _Arabian_ and the _Myles_.

The Calvin Company’s Line, of Garden Island, Kingston, has four steamers, four lake barges, and four tug steamers running between Lake Superior ports, Kingston and Montreal. The Collins Bay Rafting Company has on the same route three steamers, three lake barges, and two tug steamers. The Jacques & Co.’s Line has two steamers running from the head of Lake Erie and one from the head of Lake Ontario to Montreal.

The Great Northern Transit Company, with headquarters at Collingwood, has four freight and passenger steamers—the _Majestic_, _Pacific_, _Atlantic_, and _Northern Belle_—keeping up a well-appointed service twice a week from Collingwood to Sault Ste. Marie, and having connection with the Northern Railway to Toronto. The _Majestic_, built at Collingwood, is a steel screw steamer, 230 feet long, 36 feet wide, 1,600 tons register, and cost $125,000. She has compound condensing engines of 1,200 horse-power, and is fitted up internally with great elegance. The North Shore Navigation Company has five excellent steamers plying on the Georgian Bay and northern shores of Lake Huron from Collingwood and Owen Sound to Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac Island, where connections are made with American lines of steamers to Chicago and other ports on Lake Michigan. The steamers are the _City of Collingwood_, 1,400 tons; _City of Midland_, 1,300 tons; _City of Toronto_, 800 tons; _City of Parry Sound_ and _City of London_, each 600 tons.

Reference will be made hereafter to steamers plying on Lake Ontario and the River St. Lawrence.

THE TRANSPORTATION BUSINESS.

In the matter of transportation it may be interesting to learn how a consignment of wheat is “handled” from the time it leaves the field in Manitoba, where it is grown, until it reaches its destination in Liverpool or London. When there were only a few hundred thousand bushels to be sent to the seaboard, the means of transport were very simple and primitive. It was carried on men’s backs from one conveyance to another, and floated down rivers or shallow canals in small boats or on rafts of timber. But when the thousands became millions the problem of cheap transportation became a serious one. American ingenuity rose to the occasion and invented the most marvellous of labour-saving appliances—THE GRAIN ELEVATOR.

The farmer sells his crop of wheat to the grain-dealer, and carts it, say, to Brandon, where the purchaser takes delivery of it at his elevator. Let us examine this thing somewhat minutely, taking by way of illustration one of the elevators belonging to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company at Montreal. It is a medium-sized one, having capacity for storing about 600,000 bushels of grain. The same company’s elevators at Fort William and Port Arthur are much larger, having capacity for 1,500,000 bushels. In Chicago and Buffalo there are elevators of three millions of bushels capacity; but, whether larger or smaller, in their main features they are all alike.

The elevator is a wooden structure of great strength. Its massive stone foundations rest on piles imbedded in concrete. The framework is so thoroughly braced and bolted together as to give it the rigidity of a solid cube, enabling it to resist the enormous pressure to which it is subjected when filled with 18,000 tons of wheat. The building is 210 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 142 feet in height from basement to the peak of the roof. Including the steam-engine (built at the C. P. R. works) of 240 horse-power, the entire cost of this elevator was $150,000. It consists of three distinct compartments—for receiving, storing, and delivering grain. On the ground floor are two lines of rails by which the cars have ingress and egress. The general appearance of this flat is that of a bewildering array of ponderous posts and beams, shafting, cog-wheels, pulleys and belts, blocks and tackle, chutes, and the windlasses for hauling in and out the cars, for a locomotive with its dangerous sparks may not cross the threshold. Beneath this, in the basement, are the receiving tanks, thirty-five feet apart from centre to centre, corresponding to the length of the cars. Of these there are nine, enabling that number of cars to be simultaneously unloaded. This is quickly done by a shovel worked by machinery, with the aid of two men, the grain falling through an iron grating in the floor into the tank. The elevator has nine “legs.” The leg is an upright box, 12 inches by 24 inches, extending from the bottom of the tank to the top of the building; inside of it is a revolving belt with buckets attached 15½ inches apart. The belt is 256 feet long, and as it makes 36 revolutions per minute, each bucket containing one-third of a bushel, each leg is able to raise 5,250 bushels per hour.[56] A car is unloaded and its contents hoisted into the upper regions in fifteen minutes. When all the legs are at work 30,000 bushels are handled in an hour.

The four-story house on top of the granary contains a number of different mechanisms. In the uppermost flat the leg’s revolving belt turns round a pulley and discharges the grain into a receiving hopper on the next floor. From this it is withdrawn to the weighing hopper, nicely balanced on a Fairbanks beam-scale, having a capacity for 30,000 pounds or 500 bushels of wheat, which is weighed with as much exactitude as is a pound of tea by the grocer. At either end of this room there is a separating machine in which the grain can be thoroughly cleansed by the removal of smut and dust. Underneath is the distributing room, with jointed pipes leading to the storage bins, of which there are one hundred, each 50 feet deep and 12 feet square, calculated to hold 6,000 bushels each. The process of withdrawing the grain from the bins, strange to say, is a repetition of that just described. It must go down into the cellar, and up again to the attic, and pass through the weighing machine and thence to the car, the barge, or the ship. A car of 600 bushels can be loaded in three minutes. The most singular part of the whole apparatus is the “carrier” by which the grain is conveyed from the elevator to the vessel lying at the wharf, 260 feet off. The carrier is an endless four-ply rubber belt, 515 feet long and 36 inches wide, upon which the grain is dropped and carried to its destination. The difficulty of comprehending why the grain is not shaken off that flat, rapidly revolving belt is not lessened by the explanation given, that it is held in place by the concentrative attraction of the particles in motion. But from whatever cause, the grain clings to the belt, and may be carried in this way any distance, and in all manner of directions, turning sharp corners and even going over the roofs of houses if they stand in the way. The elevator in question delivers by “carrier” from 8,000 to 10,000 bushels an hour. There are over 50 such elevators in New York, only of much larger capacity; Buffalo has 52, with a storage capacity of over 15,000,000 bushels; Chicago, 21; Duluth and Superior, 9 each. There are elevators in Buffalo that can take grain out of a vessel at the rate of 25,000 bushels an hour.

A Duluth paper of May 21st, 1898, says: “Globe elevator No. 1 carries the broom for rapid loading this year, and the record made yesterday has probably never been equalled. The steamer _Queen City_ loaded there yesterday morning, taking 185,000 bushels in 180 minutes.”

Now, suppose that an order has reached Brandon for a shipment of 220,000 bushels of wheat,[57] to be forwarded to Montreal _via_ the St. Lawrence route. The initial cost of receiving, storing for a given time and delivery from the Brandon elevator is three cents per bushel. It must be hauled from Brandon to Fort William, a distance of 559 miles by railway. The consignment is the produce of 11,000 acres and weighs 6,600 tons. It will load 330 box-cars, each containing 40,000 pounds. As each car weighs about 25,000 pounds, the entire weight to be moved by rail will be 10,725 tons. Until quite recently, twenty cars of wheat made up an average train load, but with the powerful locomotives now in use twice that number may be taken at a load. A safe estimate for this particular shipment will be ten trains of thirty-three cars each, the gross weight of engine, tender and train being about 1,100 tons.[58] The cost of transport from Brandon to Fort William, at the summer rate of 19 cents per 100 pounds, will be 11.40 cents per bushel. By means of the elevator at Fort William it is transhipped to lake vessels. A large propeller takes on board 70,000 bushels; the balance is stored away in three barges containing 50,000 bushels each. The propeller takes the trio in tow and proceeds on its long voyage of 1,200 miles through Lake Superior, the “Soo” Canal, lakes Huron and Erie, the Welland Canal and Lake Ontario to Kingston, in seven days. The cost of transportation from Fort William to Kingston is from three to four cents per bushel, and to Montreal two cents more. At Kingston floating elevators come alongside the propeller and her consorts, and quickly transfer their cargoes into lighters carrying from 20,000 to 30,000 bushels each.[59] The fleet of nine or ten river barges is towed down the St. Lawrence, passing through the Cornwall, Beauharnois and Lachine canals to Montreal, 1,940 miles from Brandon by this route. They are laid alongside the ocean steamers in pairs, one opposite the forehatch and the other at the afterhatch, and their contents are poured into the big ship at the rate of 8,000 to 10,000 bushels per hour. The average rate to Liverpool is about 5¼ cents per bushel, bringing up the total cost of transportation from Brandon to Britain to, say, 22¼ cents per bushel. The first shipment of wheat from Manitoba to Britain was made in October, 1877.

Mr. Hugh McLennan, the president of the Montreal Transportation Company, is also one of the most extensive shippers of grain in Canada. No better illustration can be found anywhere of the man who is the architect of his own fortune. Mr. McLennan was born in the County of Glengarry in 1825. His father’s family came from Ross-shire, Scotland, in 1802, and his mother’s family were United Empire Loyalists, who settled in Glengarry at the close of the American War of Independence.

After serving some years in the hardware business in Montreal, Mr. McLennan joined the mail steamer Canada, as purser, under Captain Lawless. In 1850 he started business on his own account in Kingston, as wharfinger and shipping agent. During that season he united with some others in organizing a steamboat line to run between Kingston and Montreal, in the furtherance of which enterprise he removed to Montreal in 1851, adding the business of general shipping agent. In the year 1854 he was joined by his elder brother John, when they entered extensively into the grain trade, Mr. McLennan going to Chicago in connection with that business. In 1867 he returned to Montreal, and organized the Montreal Transportation Company, of which he has been president to the present time.

Mr. McLennan’s name soon became identified with many of the leading enterprises of the city, as well as in its educational and benevolent institutions. He still continues his active connection with the transportation and grain export business, and by reason of his long connection has become an acknowledged authority in everything pertaining to the past history of these important branches of Canadian trade. He is an ex-president of the Board of Trade, and represented that organization upon the Harbour Board for a quarter of a century, resigning the position during the present season. He is a director of the Bank of Montreal, a governor of McGill University, and of the Montreal General Hospital, and is treasurer of the Sailors’ Institute. He is also an active member of the American Presbyterian Church.

* * * * *

A large proportion of the wheat grown in the Western States and in Canada is made into flour and transported in that form to eastern and foreign markets. Minneapolis, in the State of Minnesota, claims to be the greatest flour manufacturing centre in the world. Its milling capacity is said to be 54,800 barrels daily. Its actual output in 1895 was 10,581,633 barrels. Although Canada may not compare with Minneapolis in its annual output of flour, she claims to have the largest individual miller in the world, in the person of W. W. Ogilvie, of Montreal. Mr. William Watson Ogilvie was born at St. Michel, near Montreal, April 14th, 1836, being descended from a younger brother of the Earl of Angus, who, some centuries ago, was rewarded with the lands of Ogilvie, in Banffshire, and assumed the name of the estate. His immediate ancestors belonged to Stirlingshire, Scotland, his grandfather having come to this country in the year 1800.

The milling business now represented by Mr. Ogilvie was begun by his grandfather, who, in 1801, erected a mill at Jacques Cartier, near Quebec, and also one at the Lachine Rapids, in 1808. In 1860 he became a member of the firm of A. W. Ogilvie & Co., then formed, whose transactions in grain soon became very extensive, resulting in the building of the “Glenora Mills,” at Montreal, and others of large capacity at Goderich, Seaforth and Winnipeg. On the death of Mr. John Ogilvie, in 1888, Senator A. W. Ogilvie, having retired in 1874, Mr. W. W. became the sole member of the firm, and has since proved himself a man of marvellous executive ability. He went to Hungary to see the roller process at work, where it came into use in 1868, and was one of the first to introduce it into this country. He acquired by purchase the famous Gould Mills in Montreal, at a cost of $250,000, thus adding 1,100 barrels to his daily milling capacity, which, at the present time, is about 9,000 barrels a day. The annual output of Mr. Ogilvie’s mills is about 2,500,000 barrels. About 30 per cent. of that amount is exported to different European countries; and, recently, a demand has arisen in Japan, Australia, and even in the Fiji Islands, for “Ogilvie’s Hungarian flour.” The balance is sold in all parts of the Dominion. Mr. Ogilvie purchases between four and five millions of bushels of wheat annually, and is rich in elevators, having as many as sixty-nine of these for his own special use in various parts of the country. In carrying on his extensive business he occasionally charters whole fleets of lake steamers and barges, and it is said of him that he is as fair in his business methods as he is generous in his charities. Mr. Ogilvie is a director of the Bank of Montreal, ex-President of the Montreal Board of Trade, and largely interested in several of the leading commercial interests of Canada.

DEEPER WATERWAYS.

The enlargement of the St. Lawrence and Erie canals cannot fail to prove advantageous to the inland shipping trade; but, so far from solving the question of “cheapest transportation,” it seems rather to have accentuated the demand for greater facilities of a like kind. The cry for “deeper waterways” has been in the air for many years, but never has it been louder than just now. The first enlargement of the St. Mary’s Falls Canal in 1881, and the subsequent deepening of the channels connecting the Upper Lakes had the effect, almost immediately, of doubling the tonnage of vessels plying the lakes and of producing a corresponding reduction in the rates of freight. The increase of the commerce of the lakes, incredible to those who are not engaged in it, and what appears to be its limitless future, have been keenly discussed in conventions as well as on the floors of Parliament and Congress for a number of years past, but it was only in 1894 that the movement assumed an organized form.

At a meeting held in Toronto in September, 1894, there was formed “The International Deep Waterways Association,” the declared object of which was “to promote the union of the lakes and the high seas by waterways of the greatest practicable capacity and usefulness; and recognizing the supreme utility of such waterways’ development.” At that meeting it was resolved: “That the depth of all channels through the lakes and their seaboard connections be not less than twenty-one feet, and that all permanent structures be designed on a basis not less than twenty-six feet, in order that the greater depth may be quickly and cheaply obtained whenever demanded by the future necessities of commerce.”

On the 8th of February, 1895, it was resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, “That the President is authorized to appoint three persons who shall have power to meet and confer with any similar committee which may be appointed by the Government of Great Britain or the Dominion of Canada, and who shall make inquiry and report whether it is feasible to build such canals as shall enable vessels engaged in ocean commerce to pass to and fro between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, where such canals can be most conveniently located, and the probable cost of the same, with estimates in detail; and if any part of the same should be built on the territory of Canada, what regulations or treaty arrangements will be necessary between the United States and Great Britain to preserve the free use of such canals to the people of this country at all times.”

By an order of Council dated at Ottawa, 14th December, 1895, Messrs. O. A. Howland, M.P.P., of Toronto, Thomas C. Keefer, C.E., and Thomas Munro, C.E., of Ottawa, were appointed Commissioners on behalf of the Canadian Government to meet and confer with the Commissioners appointed by the President of the United States on this important subject.

Several meetings of this International Waterways Commission have been held, a good deal of money has been spent in preliminary surveys, and reports favourable to the proposal, embodying much exceedingly interesting information as to the amount and rapid growth of the commerce of the lakes, have been submitted to the respective Governments. The American Commissioners favour the construction of a series of ship canals connecting Lake Erie with the seaboard, suggesting that the minimum depth of navigable water should be 28 feet, with canal locks 560 feet long and 64 feet wide. They present a choice of routes: (1) “The natural route” _via_ the St. Lawrence to Montreal, and _via_ Lake Champlain to the Hudson River. (2) _Via_ Lake Ontario to Oswego and thence through the Mohawk Valley to Troy on the Hudson. The latter would be entirely through United States territory; the former would necessarily be of an international character, and preferable, provided that satisfactory treaty arrangements could be effected for the settlement of any differences that might arise between the two Governments interested. In either case the construction of a ship canal at Niagara Falls on the American side of the river is judged to be necessary. The international route would involve a ship canal from some point below Ogdensburg to near the boundary line on Lake St. Francis, and thence through Canadian territory to Lake Champlain.

The Canadian Commissioners in general terms endorse the international proposal as the one “which would give an opportunity of doing what our canals were intended to do, but have failed to do, that is, to obtain the maximum amount of the western trade for the St. Lawrence route.” It is agreed that the class of vessels adapted to the Welland and St. Lawrence canals, limited to a draft of fourteen feet, can never compete successfully with the large United States vessels plying on the Upper Lakes; and the fact that these large United States vessels are unable to leave the Upper Lakes, “seems to embrace the whole ‘Deep Waterways’ question in a nutshell.”[60]

Regarding Montreal as a seaport and the natural outlet for the commerce of the West, it is conceded that its harbour accommodation must be largely increased, that it should be furnished with the best known appliances for the storage and shipment of grain, and that the navigable channel to Quebec be deepened to at least thirty feet and the Welland Canal to at least twenty feet.

The project of enlarged ship canals to connect the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean is a magnificent one. Its advantages have been skilfully set forth. There are no insurmountable engineering difficulties in the way of its accomplishment, but it is still in nubibus. Apart from the complications necessarily attending an international work of this magnitude, it is not likely that it will be entered upon until the results to commerce of the enlargement of existing canals in both countries have been fairly tested.

In estimating the comparative merits of Montreal and New York, or any other American port on the North Atlantic coast, it may be assumed that the average summer rate of freight upon a bushel of wheat by either route from the head of the Upper Lakes to Liverpool is almost identical.[61] But it must be borne in mind that grain shipped _via_ Buffalo, whether by rail or canal, may be stored at the American seaboard, to be shipped at any time during the winter that may be desirable, thus placing the Montreal route at a disadvantage. The rates of marine insurance are also said to be in favour of New York. Another argument in favour of the route to New York _via_ Buffalo is that the Erie Canal is open for navigation from three to four weeks later in the autumn than the St. Lawrence canals, a fact of great importance to the Western farmer who wishes to dispose of as much of his crop as possible before the close of navigation.

MONTREAL, OTTAWA AND GEORGIAN BAY CANAL.

This latest canal project is the revival of a proposal that was entertained by the Canadian Government many years ago, and upon which there was spent a good deal of money, but which was subsequently abandoned in favour of the St. Lawrence route. Mr. Macleod Stewart, ex-Mayor of Ottawa, and a man of great energy as well as of influence, is the chief promoter of the present enterprise. At his instance a company of British capitalists has been formed for the purpose of constructing and operating a system of canals to complete a through waterway from Montreal to the Great Lakes along the course of the Ottawa and Mattawa rivers, Lake Nipissing and French River to the Georgian Bay, Lake Huron—following precisely the track of the early voyageurs. The chief advantage claimed for this route, from a commercial point of view, is that it is by far the shortest that can be devised from the Upper Lakes to the seaboard. Owing to the directness of the route it would effect a saving in distance of 450 miles over the Erie Canal route, and of 375 over the Welland and St. Lawrence route.

The total distance by the proposed route from Montreal to the waters of Lake Huron is 430 miles, requiring, it is said, the construction of only twenty-nine miles of canal, in addition to the existing canals, to complete a through waterway adapted to the navigation of vessels of 1,000 tons burthen and drawing ten feet of water. Assuming the estimated cost not to exceed $25,000,000, it is represented in the company’s prospectus as an investment holding out the prospect of becoming a fairly remunerative commercial enterprise. It is further advanced in favour of the immediate prosecution of the work, that this route, being cooler and more sheltered than the lakes’ route, would enable grain and cattle to be taken through in better condition; that the rate of insurance would be less; that it would render available immense natural forces in the waters of the Ottawa and its tributaries; and, especially, that owing to its distance from the international boundary it would, in case of war, be of the highest military importance, and prove of great value as a means of defence and of protection to our commerce. Provided that the necessary funds are forthcoming, there are said to be no engineering difficulties to prevent the work being completed in three years’ time. On the other hand, it is alleged that a canal system limited to a draft of ten feet would not meet the present-day requirements, and could not be expected to compete successfully with one offering fourteen feet, even if the distance to be traversed would be shorter. Grain merchants, East and West, hold strongly to the opinion that the route which will bring the largest class of vessels navigating the Great Lakes to the seaboard at least expense is the route that will capture the trade. A ship canal for the Ottawa route, having twenty-five to thirty feet depth of water, with locks of 500 to 600 feet in length, would seem to offer many advantages, though in the estimation of the Deep Waterways Commission “its consideration is not now justified.”

FOOTNOTES:

[49] _Vide_ page 26 of said Report.

[50] “Buffalo Board of Trade Report, 1895,” p. 98.

[51] “United States Deep Waterways Commission Report, 1896.”

[52] “Chicago Board of Trade Report, 1895.”

[53] “United States Deep Waterways Commission Report, 1896.”

[54] “United States International Commerce Report, 1892,” p. 52.

[55] For these notes on the Erie Canal the author is chiefly indebted to Kingsford’s “Canadian Canals,” Mr. Thomas C. Keefer, C. E., Ottawa, and the Superintendent’s “Report on Canals in the State of New York, 1896.”

[56] The latest improvement in this direction is what is called the “Grain Sucker,” by which the process of loading and unloading cargoes of grain is accomplished with astonishing speed. The new appliance combines in its construction the main features of the ordinary elevator, and causes the grain to go through all the different movements above described, with this difference, that instead of the leg with the belt and bucket, the grain is elevated to the top of the structure on the principle of suction through a flexible pipe. The air being drawn off by pumps from the vacuum chamber, the grain is sucked up like water from a well. Machines of this kind, fitted with any number of these pipes that may be required, are used at the London docks, and are said to be capable of transferring wheat at the rate of a hundred and fifty tons an hour—_Vide Strand Magazine_ for May, 1898.

[57] “The steamship _Bannockburn_ and consorts left Fort William on the 3rd instant loaded with 220,000 bushels of No. 1 hard wheat for Mr. W. W. Ogilvie’s mills. This is the largest shipment that ever left the port.”—_Montreal Gazette, June 5th, 1896._

[58] The weight that can be hauled by a locomotive depends largely on the gradients of the road traversed. Winnipeg and Fort William are nearly on the same sea level, but between them the line of railway ascends and descends some 800 feet, limiting the drawing power of a sixty-ton locomotive in certain sections to, say, 900 tons. On a level road a large American locomotive will easily draw sixty cars containing 1,000 bushels of wheat each, or a total weight of 3,000 tons. As with steamships, the tendency is to increase the size of the locomotive. There is this difference, however: the weight and power of the locomotive are limited by the strength of the rail upon which it travels.

[59] Since these lines were written, three stationary elevators have been erected at Kingston—one by the Montreal Transportation Company, with a capacity of 800,000 bushels; one by the Moore Company, for 500,000 bushels, and one by James Richardson & Sons, for 250,000 bushels. The Prescott Elevator Company has erected one at Prescott of 1,000,000 capacity, and still another has been built at Coteau Landing in connection with the Canada Atlantic Railway system, with 500,000 capacity. All indications are that the enlargement of the St. Lawrence canals is confidently expected to result in a large increase in the Canadian grain trade and forwarding business. There are sixteen floating elevators in Montreal harbour, capable of handling from 4,000 to 8,000 bushels of grain each per hour.

[60] The following paragraph, taken from the _North-Western Miller_ for November 12th, 1897, doubtless reflects the opinion of the majority of Western grain dealers in the United States, with whom the feeling of sentiment for the “natural route” is of small account: “The steel barge _Amazon_ left Fort William recently loaded with 205,000 bushels of Manitoba hard wheat for Buffalo, indicating that the Buffalo route is still at its best, and that the monster craft is cutting off the Montreal route as effectively as could be desired by any rival.”

[61] We have good authority for quoting the rates of the summer of 1897 as follows: Duluth to Buffalo, 1½ cents per bushel; Buffalo to New York, by the Erie Canal, 3½ cents; New York to Liverpool, 5 cents; elevator charges, ⅞ of 1 cent; total, 10⅞ cents per bushel. Fort William to Kingston, 3½ cents; Kingston to Montreal, 2 cents; Montreal to Liverpool, 5¼ cents, including port charges; total, 10¾ cents per bushel. In 1857 the average rate by lake and canal on a bushel of wheat from Chicago to New York was 25.29 cents per bushel; now it is less than 6 cents. The reduction in cost of transmission is due to improved methods of handling freight, deeper channels, larger vessels and more rapid conveyance.