The greatest fleet of ships in the world on fresh water is the fleet that busies itself on the Great Lakes. During the winter these lakes are frozen and the whole fleet is laid up, which necessitates unusual activity for the rest of the year in order that they may pay their way. From Duluth, on Lake Superior, to Buffalo, on Lake Erie, these ships sail back and forth, deeply laden with the ore of Minnesota or the grain of the great Northwest. Piers specially designed to load the ore carriers pour huge streams of ore into their holds, and within a few hours of their arrival at Duluth the ships are on their way back to Gary or Cleveland or Erie. At these ports the cargoes are taken from their holds at such a speed as is not equalled at any salt-water port in the world.
The freighters of the Great Lakes make up the greatest part of the fleet, of course, but passenger ships comparable to almost any of the “intermediate liners” in the world sail regularly from half-a-dozen of these inland ports. Car ferries, too, are used by the railroads to take great freight trains across the lakes in order to save the land trip around. Ice-breakers, also, are used to keep open channels through the ice in order that ships may sail in winter. The ice-breakers are powerful ships whose bows are so cut away as to make it possible for them to ride up on the ice, as their powerful propellers drive them along. The ice is broken by the weight of the ship, the bow of which is built of exceptional strength to stand such rough usage. Such ships are used, too, in the Baltic, in Russia, and in Siberia, but little use is found for them elsewhere, and they are rare.
But other inland waters have developed other types of ships. The Rhine, because of its rapid current, has necessitated the building of fast steamers able to make headway against it—fast, small steamers that slowly make their way up stream and scurry rapidly down, laden with passengers or with freight, depending on the service for which they have been built.
The Seine, particularly at Paris, has a most attractive type of passenger boat which has always reminded me of a Fifth Avenue bus mounted on a hull. True, their lines are better than those of the bus, but their whole appearance, nevertheless, suggests a bus. They are long and narrow, sharp and fast, and carry many passengers along that historic river beneath the many bridges.
River boats in America are vastly different. The early Mississippi River boats were scows with stern wheels. These developed into strange boats with decks supported by what seemed to be fearfully weak timbers. They were high and wide, with blunt low bows and expansive forward decks. They usually possessed two funnels, rising high above the topmost deck and standing beside each other. The tops of these, and every place else on the boat that lent itself to decoration, were decorated with gewgaws and scrollwork. The pilot house stood high above the topmost deck, and in it was a steering wheel that sometimes was so great in diameter that it was swung through a slot cut in the deck, in order that the pilot, who was a vastly important person, could handle the spokes.
These ships burned wood, and great was the rivalry between them, and great the races that were run.
Mark Twain has told the story of these picturesque boats, and his story is their history. It could not be improved upon.
A WHALEBACK
A strange type of cargo steamer once common on the American Great Lakes, but gradually disappearing.