The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-09-09
NEW JOE MULHATTAN.
FictiOns About Transcontinen.
tai Roads and the Sound.
STEAMERS ON skEeNA RIVER.
They Bring Back Glowing Reports
Great Northern TrackIsying
Railroad and Marine Notes.

Col =. 8. DOMAIN, the professional boomer Of
townsites In newspapers, is now engaged in
sounding the praises OF Astoria as the great Pa
cifc coast terminus, and in so doing pains of
mass OF MISREPRESENTATION on the readers of the
st. Louis Globe Democrat. Col. DOMAIN paid
visit to Astoria aud Portland q few weeks ago,
but never showed himself on the Sound, for he
is the kind of q man TO make his presence
known wherever he goes For ability In
mingIing fact and fiction. all for the purpose OF
booming town, the following is unsurpassed:
/ doubt whether one person in thousand
knows that we have not transcontinental rail-
way in the United States. The only one in
North America, or in the New World for that
matter, is the Canadian Pacific. All our So
called transcontinentai lines are in name alone
OF those in the southern part OF the country
that terminate on the Pacific ocean at sau
Francisco none extends further cast than
Ogden, Salt Lake or Ell Paso. and those further
north are still less entitled To style themselves
.Tanscontinentai. for they both begin and end
far inland. The Union Pacific begins at Omaha
end ends at Portland. Or.
The Northern Pacific begins at st. Paul and
Duluth and ends at Portland, Tacoma and Sc
attic, and the Great Northern has the same ter
minai-all inland points. Portland is III miles
out in the woods of Oregon, twelve miles up
the Willamette, which empties into the Column
bia river 100 miles above its mouth. 1t costs
with these roads from 500 to $4,000 in towage
and lighteTage fees, and it takes her from six TO
fourteen days TO make the round trip from the
ocean and back. Say there are now about 700
ships q year. Put the average cost
OF towing and Tightening at $1,000.
and the average loss OF time at ten
days. and You have total levy of &, 900, 000 and
IN aggregate waste OF 20,oc0 days in every year.
on the commerce that passes through Portland.
II il little il any better at seattle and Tacoma,
which are from 100 to 80 miles INLAND. on q
sound, or slough, full of rocks and shoals and
difiieuit and dangerous of navigation.
II Is tax on commerce. and the strange
thing about Ii Is that the business men of the
country have borne it ever since the Northern
Pacific was completed TO Portland, nine years
ago. 1t is tribute for the benefit of
inland towns and tugboat and barge
great railroads leading eastward terminate
ut Albany, 80 miles up the Hudson, instead of
in the harbor of New York. At the mouth OF
the Columbia, however, IL the greatest harbor
on tho Pacific coast, with forty feet of water at
full tide aud twenty-nine feet at low tide, while
New York has but twenty-sx feet and San
Francisco but twenty-seveu. The government
jetty, on which $l,7aD,000 has been spent is rap
idly deepening even this great depth, SO that
there will soon be thirty-six feet mt low tide
Here Is the spot John Jacob Astor selected
ninety-one years ngo rs 'tbe emporium of Pa
cite coast trade" and Astoria is the town he
founded.
railroad will connect all the so-calied trans
continental railways with the ocean ut this
point and enable their cars to run alongside of
the ships. Two roads are already surveyed, and
one Is being rapidly built George Goss, chief
engineer OF the Rio Grande Western, is at the
head OF II and Is pushing work as fast as men
and money can do it. The road passes through
a vast coal field ana through the finest forests
in North Amcrica-timber that cuts from $1,000
to co. 600 feet to the acre. When the road gets
into Astoria the whole transcontinental railway
business In that part OF the United States will
DO revoutionzed.
Col Donan ought to call upon Baron Nun
chausen, Joe Mulhattan aud Ananas to hand
down their robes. A number of reputable
citizens of ST. Louis, who have sailed ON the
Sound, can correct his misstatemeuts