Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-17

past ten years; the cost of labor has risen
easily 70 Der cent: rates in the meantime
have declined. But in this same period the
average return on railway stocks to their
holders has been doubled. In what other
country than America could such a result
have been achieved? The same thing has
been going on in the great manufacturing
industries that the public hears less about
than the railways The secret of 1t all Is
In the wonderful mechanical genius of the
American people. We make two blades of
grass grow where one grew before. and We
invent machines that turn out two pieces
from q pattern in the same time that one
was made before. The basic principle in
american railway development is The big
bigger cars, bigger engines-all making pos
sible bigger trains-we have constantly in
creased the amount of work developed from
the man employed, the fuel consumed and
the materials used.
\
An eastern railroad president complains
that the reason railways cannot sell bonds
Is because they are in too big chunks to
appeal to ordinary investors. He suggests
that the way to make a market for railway
bonds is to cut them all into smaller pieces
after the French fashion. Many people
would be glad to put their money into rail-
way bonds, but they cannot afford to pay
$l,OOO apiece for them. II they could buy
them for 500 apiece or 80 apiece they
would put their money into them.
4 X
James J. Hills friends are picking up the
Great Northern Ore certificates steadily.
The Hill iron ore lands would not be worth
a hundredth part of their present value
but for the great cheapening of the cost
of transporting ore from the mines at the
head of the lakes to the blast furnaces, a
thousand miles away in Pittsburg. When
we began rolling Bessemer rails, in the late
sixties, 1t cost more to carry ore from
Marquette to Ohio than the ore is now sold
for. In the old days the was mined
and loaded on cars by human labor, hauled
to the docks in small tranloads, put aboard
ne-thousand-ton sailing vessels by means
or wheeibarrows, and unloaded again by
human labor at Ohio ports. Before the
first 500 canal was dug, the ore had to be
rehandled at the portage between Lake Su-
perior and Lake Huron, and taken across
Oil railway. In the first years of the lake
ore trade the ore at the portage was hauled
across on strap railroad in little cars
drawns by horse.
AS late as 1866 the freight rate on ore
from Marquette to Ohio ports varied from
So to S. % a ton. Now the rate is IS cents
ton or less. Power-driven shovels and
loading and unloading machines. and big
cars. locomotives and ships have revolu-
tfoniZed the lake transportation of ore. At
the mines in Michigan and Minnesota, and
along the shores of Lake Superior, fifty
ton steel car is loaded in three minutes in
eight thrusts of giant steam shovel. The
long ore trains, carrying thousand tons
OF ore to the train, are hauled to the mar
velous ore docks at Duluth, Two Harbors.
Superior, Ashland, Escanaba and Mar
quette by 13O-ton engines. There the cars
empty through drop bottoms into steel
steamships. The Augustus B. Wolvin, one
Of the lake ore carriers, recently took on
cargo Of 1925 tons of ore in eighty
nine minutes. Nine thousand tons
of this cargo were put aboard in thirty
four minutes. At the Ohio ports-Cleve-
land, Conneaut, Ashtabua and at Buffalo
and half dozen others the ore is trans
ferred by giant unloading machines, carry
ing ten tons at a stroke, from the ship to
ore trains, to be hauled to Pittsburg.