[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.
[62] Mr. John Ross Robertson’s “Landmarks of Toronto” (Toronto: 1896) contains an account of nearly all the steamboats that have plied on Lake Ontario and the Upper St. Lawrence from 1816 to 1895.