The Portland daily press., 1882-01-16
Michigan Letter.
Bay City and It's Industries.
BAY Cry. MICHIGAN. Dec. 81.

BAY CITY, Michigan, Dec 81, 1881.
This town is situated at the head of Saginaw
Bay, deep indenture of Lake Huron, By
means of which it has free access to the whole
system of great lakes that distinguish this part
of North America from any other part Of the
globe. There is no town on the great waters
that has greater facilities than this for the
navigation of these internal seas. A great
quantity of lake craft is now lying at her
wharyes, hauled up for the Winter, during
which season, these waters are practically
closed to navigation.
This ''lake craft consists in steamers, most
ly propellers, that are freight vessels, great
many sailing vessels, propellers employed a.
tugs and "barges"-that are vessels Of 100,
200 or 300 tons, as thought them to be, as I
saw them lying at the wharves. These barges
are furnished with short masts and sails-are
loaded with the products of the country, and
are towed by the propellers to market, Tole-
do, Cleveland, Buffalo, Ogdensburg or else
where. The navigation of these lakes is now
on very great scale and is increasing every
year rapidly, with the increase Of population
and with the rapid increase of the productions
of the country, of whatever sort, agricultural
and universal, and OF the forests Of pine and
other woods. Within another half century,
the shores of these interior waters will bo
swarming with busy and prosperous people.
The rich SOIL the abundant coal, iron, salt and
timber, copper and silver cannot fail to give
employment and comfortable subsistence to q
great population. The people who live here
now understand all this, and many thoughtful
and far-seeing men and women are earnestly
endeavoring to establish conditions that will
most surely promote in the highest degree the
interests of the coming generations.
My host took me to-day to great Michigan
sawmill, and the salt works connected with it,
had often had these establishments described,
but never saw one before. This establishment
was a large one, and like all the others, faced
the waters Of Saginaw river, which is naviga-
BILE for all the lake craft. The river for nearly
its whole Il myth from Saginaw, twelve miles, Is
lined with continuous quay formed OF timber,
on which is piledIup, symmetrcally, from end
to end enormous masses of lumber, waiting Tor
the season to be shipped off to market, whittier
it goes by the lakes or by rail. Vessels can lie
by these lumber piles on the river front, and
the rails run all along the rear, by which the
lumber can go rapidly to every part OF the
Union, or of the World.
1t is wonderful to see the enormous quantity
whole distance from Saginaw to Bay City on
both S des of the river. Any person knowing
nothing of the trade would suppose there Is
lumber enough there now ready for market to
supply the wants of the world for year But
our great cities absorb 1t, as they do the enor-
nous products of the -four mills and the abat-
toirs of the great West. These enormous piles
of lumber melt rapidly away and are gone,
while their places are regularly and as rapidly
supplied by others like them. There seems to
No m r. n q
but all this is constantly undergoing rapid
change, involving incessant activity among
multitude of workers in piling up and taking
down and putting on board vessels or upon the
long lines Of cars waiting to receive it.
The mills produce the lumber with gang
saws, mostly, which do their work in the best
manner, leaving very little for the planer to
do afterward These gangs" have forty saws
each, at least the mill saw had that number
the edging, butling and lathe saving are
done with 'circulars." 1t is most interesting
to lover of machinery, and to every one in
terested in great industries, to look on and see
how easily and rapidly the trunks OF these
giants OF the forests are manipulated In these
mills if may use that term Of process in
which the human hand hardly appears. A
pair of enormous "ice-tongs" seize savagely
the end of a great log, drag it up rapidly to its
procrustean bed, where a circular saw at each
end instantly reduces it to the standard length.
Then 1t seems to go OF itself to bed where IL
is ''sided"-and again to another, where 1t Is
reduced to the required dimensions. While
we are talking about it, the great log which
we saw in its rough bark, coming in at one end
of the mill, is going out at the other end pre-
pared for market, and is taken away to the
lumber piles that are rapidly increasing in alti-
tude on the river front.
The waste steam from the engines passes OH
through great iron pipes that pass to and fro
in the enormous tanks that contain the satu-
rated brine constantly flowing in from the
pumps. This brine is kept heated to about
190o-never boiling-and the salt forms rapidly
upon the surface in small crystals, and falls to
the bottom. When the process is completed
the exhausted water is drawn off and the salt
all ready for market, is taken away in barrows
and heaped up in great masses, where saw
more than fifty thousand barrels OF 1t. a tea
spoonful of butter is put upon the surface OF
the brine, which prevents the formation OF the
salt in q solid and continuous sheet. The but
ter, perhaps oleomargerinel or even cheaper
fat. causes the salt to form in small crystals,
that are nearly white as snow, and almost hne
enough for the table.
At the salt works l visited are six wells
with six inchE bore and nine hundred feet
deep. The product of these-about one nun-
dred gallons minute-was constantly flow
ing into one end of the long lines OF shallow
tanks, where it is rapidly converted into salt.
The works run continuously, night and day,
except on the Sunday, and the annual product
of all the works is fully two million barrels and
can easily be increased to any required
amount.
The people of Michigan seem to me to be
unusually enterprising. They are extremely
proud of their state and want to make 1t the
richest and most prosperous OF all the sister
hood, which they think her boundless resour-
ces entitle her to be. They are beginning to
understand as they have never done before,
that the liquor traffic is a steady and enormous
drain upon the industries and wealth OF the
State, wasting her physical energies and the
profits of legitimate trade, which ought to go
to swell the annual gains and savings Of the
people and would do so, but for the malign
influence of the gre g-shops.
The great objection, indeed, the only one
to the adoption here of the policy ofprohibition
is, that it shas failed in Maine, where more liz
uor is sold than ever, in the corresponding in
crease in drunkenness, poverty, pauperism,
crime, insanity and premature DEATH" &c
&c--through the whole gamut OF falsehood.
NEAL Dow.