The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1897-12-27
FROM CHICAGO TO The SEA.
Feasibility of Ship Canal From The
City 10 the Ocean.

City 10 the Ocean.
From the Review of Reviews
The great lakes bear to-day a greater
commerce in point of tonnage than all
the foreign trade which flows in or out
from all the ports of the United States.
But so long as the lake freighter is
baked by the wall of Niagara so long
as cargoes must be broken in transit.
ana lifted over the Alleghanies to the
/ seaboard, this nations development is
arrested and its approaching CONNER
cial supremacy jeopardized or deferred.
| Another comparison may be yet more
\ striking. One of the great engineering
I ieats OF the century was the opening
| of the Suez canal. Its present traffic
! amounts to about 5000. 900 tons annu-
| ally, and 1T cost approximately $780,
I o00,0OO TO build. Another gigantic pro-
! 1eet which has deeply engaged the at
tention of this country is the Nicara-
qua canal. 1t is estimated that il win
cost half as much again as the canal
of Suez-perhaps S150.000 600 But even
Its Warmest advocates do not compute
Tor II an immediate traffic of more than
5000, 600 or 5000. 900 tons; 1t would prob
ably have much less.
A single lock in the wilds of northern
Michigan-that of the Sault Ste Marie
--passed last year some Is. 00o 600 tons.
ana 1t is merely connecting link be-
tween Superior and the lower lakes. 1t
Is estimated that the Detroit river
bears each year a through traffic of
ABOVE 26,o0000o tons. The entire COM
merce of the great lakes must be be-
tween 100000 and 10000, 900 tons an
nually. This is traffic equal to one
thlrd OF all that carried upon the 20
600 miles of railway in the United
states, system that took $40. 600, 900 900
or al2,OOO, 100000 to construct and equip
The colossal commerce of these great
inland seas is, in "A broad sense purely
local; 1t is bottled up by the hitherto
lmpaSsable wall over which leap the
waters OF Niagara. With these lakes
open to the sea, to the gulf, and yet
further. We're it possible to bring down
by water the vast produce of the great
Northwest the trade when would be
developed is beyond the powers of any
man TO calculate. But Ii is safe to say
that there is awaiting the outlet from
Lake Erie to the sea traffic many
times that of the SueZ and Nicaragua
canals combined.
A line drawn from Buffalo through
Pittsburg to Denver and northward to
the Arctic ocean viii hardly circum-
scribe the area, all OF whose roadways,
SO TO speak, lead to the lakes This
great basin is the treasury Of the con-
tinent. 1t contains the great deposits
of ores and fuels; ii manufactures most
extensively. ii almost feeds the nation:
IT produces the large portion OF our
exports, save that of cotton. and Ii
consumes the larger portion of our i'm
ports
Some. at least, OF the millions popu-
lating this basin know that it costs al
most as much to transship their car
goes at Buffalo MS it does to carry these
the entire length of the lakes. They
see that they pay as much for carry
Ing bushel of grains from Dakota to
liverpool as will calIB tsvb and Il half
competing bushels from Argentine
They know further that If their ships.
once aiioat on the great lakes. could
go on TO the port Of the Atlantic In UNI
interrupted course, they would be put
in touch with thefnew or greater mar
kets, which are now entirely cut off |
from a part of their lsroGucts and to /
reach which they pay dearly for the /
rest. There is little doubt. in view of I
the steady cheapening of lake rates. /
That i'll few years Il cargo could be /
carried from Chicago or Duluth to I
New York, and perhaps In time TO Liv- I
erpool, for little more than the present I
carriage To Buffalo.
shipway to the sea should be built
under strict government supervision
and control. but 1t can be built success
fully only by the same type of genius
which has created on this continent a
railroad system that is without an
equal in the world. The large-brained
engineers who have made possible
what but yesterday was impossible
stand ready to undertake this work.
They ask not a dollar of subsidy, but
simply charter rights. 10 go forward
with an enterprise fraught with vast
err consequences and of more intimate
To the larger portion Of this
nation than any other commercial en-
tefnrise projected since the beginning
of railway construction in America.