The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1901-06-01
ORE IN TRANSIT.
MARVELLOUS ACHIEVEMENTS OF
LAKE BOATS.

OUsAcHlEvEMENTS OF
LAKE Boats.
TRANSFORMATION of Iron Ore Treated In
Descriptive and Statistical Article -.
Development of the Com nerclal Navy
OF the Great Lnke,.
In the Century The Transportation
of Iron" is described by Waldon Faw-
cett, with drawings by Ernest L. Blum
enschein. To carry the freshly mined
ore twelve hundred miles by land and
sea, he says, and deposit it, Within
little more than a week after it has
left the miners shovel, at the furnaces
In Pennsylvania and Ohio, where it is
TO receive it's baptism of fire, is the
task which has been successfully ac-
complished of late years by the men
who have charge of the transportation
chain which connects the mineral
storehouses in the Northwest with the
manufacturing plants CT the middle
states. They have, indeed, done more ;,
by undertaking operations on a .gigan-7
tic scale, they have shaved costs 50
closely that the embryo iron is now
carried more cheaply than freight is
moved anywhere else in the world. 1t
is a marvellous transit, this trip a third
of the way across the continent, and
the journey itself is not more wonder
full than the vehicles in which it is
made. The flying trip is made by rail,
then, by boat, and finally by rail again;
and it might be made even more quick
~ were it not necessary to lose a
day and half changing cars so to
speak, although in reality, of course,
the transfer is from cars to the mo2-
ster freight-carrying vessels Of the
from the leviathans of the inland seas
20 the metal wagons of the steam-road.
On the first stage of its journey, from
the mine to the loading wharf at some
port On the upper lakes, the iron ore
travels on what is probably the most
crowded steel-tracked highway in the
world. Each of the powerful locomo.
tlVes can draw a load of ore, nearly
equal to the weight of the entire Amer
lean standing army prior to the Span
ish war. Almost all the cars now en-
ployed are made of pressed steel, ard
each of them will hold fifty tons. It
would seem as though the designe ers
Of these modern coaches of commefc
had though Of every contingency, fo5
there are even provided holes in thf
sides of&the. car through which streams
Of steam may be played upon the frog
en- ore in order to thaW it quickly h !.
development of the commercial nav
Of the Great Lakes, the chief work O
which is found in the transportation cf
iron ore, constitutes one CT the nos
remarkable evolutions Of the century
which has just closed The first Car
goes Of the mineral were transported i
vessels that carried only a few hun
dred tons and required more than tive
weeks for the journey. The new cHa!t
carry ten or twenty times as much
and little mere than half as many days
are given UP to the delivery OF each
consignment at it's port Of destinat' O
All the best of the lake. vessels are en-
ployed largely or exclusively in the ore
traff1c-a natural sequence, since this
is the one plum Of internal commerce
at which the railroads get scarcely a
nibble. Indeed, the "alI-rail,' shi.;
ments, as they are termed, hardly e<-
ceed half million tons yearly CIT OF
total Of twenty million tons. That
the steam-lines get even this, morse
of comfort is largely due to the exige;,-
cies Of sudden demand after the ice
has sealed up the waterway. The ships
Of the ore-fleet range from three hun
hred and fifty to five hundred feet il
latter equal in size to thu
transatlantic liners Of few years ago
Few of them draw, when fully laden
more than eighteen feet Of water, and
they are capable Of carrying anywhere
from six thousand to nine thousand
tons of ore, or sufficient quantity
tosfll more than dozen ordinary rail-
road trains. The modern vessels are
built entirely of steel, even to the deck
houses, where the men eat and sleep,
and the slender, bare masts Essen
tally they are freight-carriers, and yet
For the accommodation of occasional
guests there are fitted up on many of
them rooms quite as handsomely fur