The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1881-01-06
River Commerce OF Pittsburgh.

her influence along the $4,000 miles O.
navlgable streams attainable by hel
river steamers. This influence She re-
talns IN spite of the rapid growth of thai
great destroyer of river trade, the
railway. On either side of the. three
valleys that radiate Pittsburgh are
found the omnipresent parallel lines o.
rails. six arms of great cuttle-fish
whose body is the smoky CITY, and
| whose suction disks are the station.
houses that draw the life from the trade
OF each stream. On the Allegheny this
trade has long disappeared entirely
the Monongahela bears upon its slack
watered current line of fine boats that
have existed since the earliest davs OF
steam navigation, but whose business
begins to feel railway encroachment.
The Ohio is piled by line of Cincin-
natl and Pittsburgh packets, and by
smaller craft earning a precarious exis-
tence between ''way" points, but the
glory of the river is departed.
And yet, at favorable stages of water
IN the tickle Ohio, the levee at Pitts
burgh shows most animated scenes. A
stranger reaching the city during a
stage of water favorable for boating
say four to eight feet of water in the
channel-would be treated to most
interesting sight on the Monongahela
wharf, between that manv-piered and
venerable structure the Monongahela
Suspension-Bridge and the "Point. !"
Ihls scene is especially characteristic
when witnessed from the upper or
hurricane deck of some bio
1,OO0-ton steamer. The observer is re.
minded of nothing so much as of fresh
ly disturbed ant-hill. This snnile is borne
out by the action of the double stream
OF big black 9 rousters;'' 4. e., colored
boat hands. As these pass in opposite
directions over the gang plank, each
blped ant bears, not a milk-white egg,
but fat sack of bran as to the out-go-
ers, or box of glass or bar of steel as
to the incoming procession. This
double process goes on until the great
hull has exchanged its st. Louis freight
for Pittsburgh's products. And SO
skillfully is the same hull fashioned
and adapted to the precarious channels
OF Western rivers, that, with thou
sand tons of freight aboard, Pitts
burgh and St. Louis passenger and
freight boat will scarcely. draw four
and a half feet of water And in this
way, during the first three months of
1880, 10000 tons per month of the
varied products of Pittsburgh's fiery
hearted furnaces were waited by steam
and current $500 miles toward the set
ting sun. Kindly showers thus washed
away 80, 900 tons of freight from the
railroads.
But the magic wand which most DO
tently transforms the river-front of
Pittsburgh, which brings intense ener-
gy out of apathy, which turns day to
night. and silence into Babel of sounds
is the sudden advent of coal-boat"
stage OF water, a. e., anything over eight
feet. This occurs when both rivers.
swelled by rapid thaw or continued
rains, send down their quickened tides.
SO that both freshets reach the Ohio at
the same time. About the mouth of
the Monongahela, or safely moored in
its slack-water "pools," float hundreds
OF great clumsy craft that have. the
draught ola small ocean steamer. These
are laden deep with millions of bushels
OF the wonderful bituminous coal
and matchless coke of Western Penn
sylvania. The coal, in glistening, ir-
regular cubes, is fresh from a hundred
collierles up the beautiful Monongahela
Valley, and the coke, in huge barges
that hold $4,000 bushels each, is the |
output of the adjacent regions, where
), 900 coke ovens blacken the fair land
and sky with their dense smoke. In 1877 |
-, 100000 bushels of coal and 8, ,5OO,- !
700 bushels of coke passed through the
ocks of the Monongahela, dependent
or its going upon the caprice of Jupiter
Pluvius. These awkward looking boats.
With their load of carbon, may have |
ain thus for months, while the price of |
heir eargoes has doubled in the far-off
markets for which they were loaded,
md their owners are moved to pro-
anity, or pray for rain to float off their
waiting cargOes.
Pittsburgh is the home of 1870 tow
,oats of pattern ncomprehensible to
Eastern eyes, for they do not :. tow"
'ut push. Their homeliness is out
Weighed by their bulldog tenacity of
purpose, when it comes to their Leo It'll
nate business of harbor and long-trip
owing OF cumbersome fleets of coal
aden craft. These are lashed to solid
leet. of which the steamer is the hind
most hull. In cost these c1afts
ange from the perfectly appointed
aonster representing fortune Of $780,
90 and the power of 100 horses, down
the battered veteran that might bring
1000. This motley feet is huddled in
ort, each boat ready and anxious to
move these coal crafts over the hun
reds or thousands of miles of tortuous
)hio or muddy Mississippi. Their fires
re laid and their boilers. are filed, and
7hen the coal-boat stage comes at last
finds Pittsburgh boats and their crews
alvanized into intense action. m
1t may be that this long-expected rise
an affair of single day or of forty
ight hours duration at best. Tie +
ivers of Pittsburgh rise and fall like a
ack-in-the-box. There may be three feet
water on Saturday, thirteen on Sun
ay and Mondays sunset will redden
SIX feet scant" in the channel. Be-
ween these extremes is the tide which.
aken at the flood, leads the coal fleet
Southern and Western markets, and
rings long-deferred cash to the ship
ers. The amount of Systematically