OCEAN LAKES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 September 1939, Page 7

OCEAN LAKES

NORTH AMERICAN WATERWAYS

FRESH WATER TRAFFIC.

VAST & IMPORTANT TRADE • CONNECTIONS.

Ice lingered long this year in the Upper St Lawrence River and at Sauli Ste. Marie. Not in many years have the jams been so great. Although there was some traffic on the Lower Great Lakes as early as mid-March, ice delayed the opening of general traffic about six wefeks longer. That in itself is not so unusual, however, for shipping on these great inland seas seldom gets under way until late April or even early May. The time now has come once again when strollers beside Lake Michigan or Lake Erie may watch'the lights of some vessel passing a mile or so offshore. Silent as a picture; it is a unit in the world’s merchant fleet. It may be a passenger ship, but more likely it is carrying iron ore, grain or coal. Those who wait for a bridge to descend, spanning the river in Chicago or Milwaukee, see a great freighter pass through —another floating trade statistic! Ferry boat passengers in the boundary rivers, or motorists crossing the great bridges which link Canada and the United Stales at Sarnia or Detroit or Niagara Falls, will see a procession of purposeful vessels, writes Robert W. Desmond in "The Christian Science Monitor.” From April to late November, the waters of the five Great Lakes and their connecting waterways, locks, and canals never cease to wash the hulls of thousands of ships. From the harbours of Duluth-Superior, twenty-second port of the world, almost at the very geographical centre of the North American continent, to Ogdensburg, N.Y, 1218 miles to the east, or to Montreal, 182 miles beyond on the St Lawrence River, the head of most ocean-borne traffic, the ships pass and re-pass, day and night, night and day. Any ship can' sail 1000 • miles through open lakes beyond sight of land. Most of the ships, on the Great Lakes fly the United States flag, but a great many fly the Union Jack, for they sail under Canadian registry, and the lakes boundary are open to both. A few ships fly foreign flags, and the number promises to increase with any encouragement to world trade, because moder-ate-sized ocean vessels can move from the St Lawrence River through the Welland Canal- into Lake Ontario. The largest ever to enter was a 7000-ton ship. During recent years, Great Lakes ports have seen ships carrying the colours of Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Norway, Sweden and other countries. For several years 2650ton ships of the flag of the Netherlands, have made regular voyages between Hamburg or Rotterdam and Chicago, bringing cargo transhipped from various European places —London and Marseilles, Glasgow, and Bordeaux. Paris, and Antwerp Berlin and Gdynia —all for delivery at various Great Lakes ports. This year a second Netherlands line, the Oranj Line, also will send its ships to Chicago, and a British line also is reported as about to begin a regular service. * * VARIED CARGOES. The ships, in years past, have brought in six or seven loads of potash for fertiliser, to be used in Cleveland and in Chicago, and on the tulip beds at Holland, Mich. Barbed wire and nails from Germany and Belgium, baskets of many sizes and shapes front Poland, linens from Great Britain—and from Czecho-Slovakia. Sears, Roebuck and Chicago retail merchants also import perfumes from France, clothing from Scotland, cameras from Germany. The Field Museum brings in antiques and art objects for delivery almost at the door. Laboratory equipment arrives for North-Western University and the University o'f Chicago . . . . These same ships sail away again carrying back to Europe such things as Chicago’s stockyards products—hides, hair, frozen beef, lard, fertiliser, grain from Duluth, some manufactured goods drawn from the rim of the lakes.

Despite the interest which salt-water traffic attracts in the Great Lakes, the fresh-water traffic is the main thing. And it is far more important than the casual observer probably realises, even though his mouth does hang open when he stands close up to one of the enormous bulk freight vessels which carry grains ore, coal,, and other cargoes over the lakes. These lakes are big—they are long and wide and deep —and they bear both freight and passenger traffic. Ever since 1797, the year when George Washington retired from office as first President of the United States, and "the year, also, when the first American ship was built for lakes service at Erie. Penna., the traffic has increased. FIRST STEAM VESSEL. The first steam-powered vessel for lake service was constructed in 1816. at Oswego, on Lake Ontario. It" was 1832. however, before any steamer went un ■ dor its own power from Lake Erie waters all the way to Chicago. Up to that time Detroit had been the western terminus except for fur traders and military expeditions. Until 184 L too. all of the lakes steamers were side-wheel - ers, but the propeller began to churn the inland waters in that year; it was 1897 before motor vessels appeared on the lakes.

Through the years harbours were improved, canals built, rivers dredged out, locks—-and then larger locks—built, bigger and bigger ships constructed until in 1935, a year from which the last consolidated figures are available. there were well over 2000 vessels of all types, totalling more than 2,000.000 tons, plying the lake routes, and each year carrying many times their own weight, chiefly in ore, coal, and grain, but also carrying stone cement, steel, scrap, sand, gravel, pulp, newsprint, petroleum, lumber, salt—and passengers, too, and automobiles —a total annual cargo, apart from the passengers, estimated at 3.000 000.000 dollars in value.

Yet these great producing areas are far inland —considerably more than -1000 miles from the sea. The cost of getting grain from the farm to the mill, or to the ship for overseas export is an important factor in fixing the profits of the farmer, the ability of the United States and Canada to compete with- other lands whose grain-produc-ing areas are nearer the seaboard — and affecting the .price people must nay for their bread! With well over 225.000,000 bushels of grain shipped each year, by the lakes, it is not surprising that even a quarter of a cent

difference per bushel in shipping costs as between ship and rail, might have far-reaching effects.With the Minnesota iron ranges producing as much as 66,000,000 tons of ore, which they did in 1916, it is obvious that the lakes form an important avenue for transporting this vital raw material to the smelters at Gary ano South Chicago, at the foot of Lake Michigan; to the smelters near Detroit, and, chief in importance, to the smelters in Ohio and Pennsylvania, particularly around Pittsburgh. The enormous ore-loading docks, the automatic loading and unloading devices and the extremely long, low-appearing freighters used in this traffic have contributed to make possible the large-valume, low-cost mass production synonymous with the name of American industry.

These ships, which carry grain and ore from west to east, return laden with coal from the mines of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even farther south in West Virginia. More than 30,000,000 tons of it is loaded at Lake Erie ports alone in a year, to be delivered to ports between Detroit and Duluth-Superior, and to Chicago, Milwaukee, and other Lake Michigan cities. Much is to be transferred to railroad cars for inland places. Stone, cement, sand and gravel form other bulky commodities moved efficiently and cheaply by th.ese Great Lakes freighters between point of production and point of consumption.