SS. “NORTH-WEST,” 1894.
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.