The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1895-10-10
RIVER STEAMBOATS,
At Close Range There Isn't Much Poetry
About Them.

At Close Range There Isn't Much Poetry
About Them.
The Mississippi steamboat is a
glorious craft III history and fiction,
but the reality is rather disappointing
To the eastern eye she looks decidedly
topheavy, extremely cheap and I'M
speakably dirty. The average western
river craft looks like dwelling in
shanty-town at the end of hard win
ter. There is neither grace nor power
in her lines. She is both broken
backed and hump backed, if those eK-
pressions are allowable without mix
ing metaphors.
The hull of the Mississippi boat of
ordinary size is built very lightly. She
is fat bottomed and draws little over
foot of water. Her guards are only
few feet abova the waters edge. Her
upper works consist of two or more
stories, built on the general plan OF
| the picnic barge architecture. The
main cabins of the big New Orleans
| liners are long and tawdrily decorated
with cheap paint. The whole con-
struction is one which would be
knocked into a cooked hat in thirty
| minutes if it yentured out to the Sandy
| Hook lightship, or if it even tried to
go up Long Island sound on rough
night.
The machinery of the western river
craft is especially ungainly to the east
ern eye. The great majority of boats
Il have one great paddle-wheel at the
stern, after the manner of the humble
! el-barrow Others. principally the
ferry and harbor boats, have one big
wheel mounted in the center of the
boat and housed in. These two con
structions are both designed to avoid
/ the enormous logs of floating DRIFT
wood which dot the surface OF the
river after each rise of the water level
Some of the cheaper excursion boats
have paddle-wheels at the sides, bu'
they frequently have to slow dowr
when approaching the more thar
usually dense section of this lnlane
Saragossa sea, or lose half the buckets
on their paddle-wheels.
When the boats have side paddle
wheels they are mounted on shor
shafts and operated by individual en-
gines, so that when the skipper, il
maneuvering his boat, can back on
wheel and GO ahead with the other
swinging the craft on it's axis. The en-
gines are high pressure, with lonl
wooden connecting rods, and curiousl,
constructed valve gear. Each engin
has it's engineer and separate system
of signal bells. The boilers are on tn
main deck, elevated on legs like
, Dutch oven. Soft coal is burned eS
clusively, and there are long, narroN
sheetiron smokestacks, with more
less gaudy decorations, from the to
of which dense volumes of black smok
are continually rolling. The boats ar
slow. One that makes eleven miles a
, hour is considered clipper.
The cost of operation is small, as ca
be seen from the fact that the tri
from st. Louis to New Orleans and re
turn, occupying nearly two week.
costs the traveller only about invent
! dollars for fare, meals and berth. Th
, run from St Louis to St Paul and n
y turn, occupying week or more, ca
be made for twelve dollars. Freigf
, cars loaded with coal are frequentl
a run on to floats and lowed from Pitt
a burgh down the Ohio and up the Mi
y sissippi to ST. Louis for less cost tina
9 they could be sent over the rails