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Enormous Traffic At The "soo."

Enormous Traffic At The "soo." image
Parent Issue
Day
14
Month
August
Year
1895
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

mone the big figures which show tbe growth of the trade of the lake reon and the commerce of the lakes xpmselves, tl.ere are no statistics more emarkable than those tbat measure ,e prodigious traffic which passes through the sliip canal at Sault Bte. Marie. It is evident that the greatest esümates ever .nade of the future business of the new lock in that channe will be surpaased, and it is well that the Canadians have built a big canal oí their side of the river as an overflow outlet for the cornmerce of Lake Supe In the month of July the freight caried through the Bfc Mary's River Canal was 187,000 tons in excess of the biggest record ever made by the canal in a ike period The freight tonnage reached the truly prodigious total of 2,477,000 tous. It is not very long since that would have made a fair business for the entire season of navigation, and when the canal first reached the limit of 1,000,000 tons in a month it was considered wonderful. For a long time the Suez Canal used to beat the St. Mary's Canal easilym tonuage, both measured and freight, but now tbere is no longer any competition between the two waterways in respect to the volume of their traffic. ] Insixmonths the canal at the -feoo makes a record lor freight and tonnage which is 50 per cent greater than the business of the Suez Canal in twelve ,nonths. It is hnprobable that the Suez anal has ever been used by one-haü ib great a tonnage in any month since , opened as tbat whicb passed through the canal at Sault Ste. Mane in Jlïhe totals for our record-breaking canal are already wonderiul, but the rate of increase is still move astomshiut! This year the season ot navigation at Sault Ste. Marie began about two weeks later than in 1894 and the water bas been so low all the time thai the carrying capacity ot large vesselsusingthe canal has been less than it was last year. Kevertheless, the total freight tonnage for the season isa million tons in advance ot the records for 1894, down to the same date. The rate of increase bas been about 15 percent. If that sort of growtü 1 inues a few years more .the tonnage sent through the Bult Ste. Mane anale, for both of them will be much üd-wiUnotfall short of 25,000,000 tons a year by the end of the present century. That will mean 3,500,000 tons a month all through the season of navi„ation, or more than 4,000 tons an hoor, day and night, without ceasing. That is equivalent to at least tliree big freight trains, on a flrst elass railroad, every hour, or one train every twenty minutes, from May till December. Such comparisons give some idea of what the St. Mary's Canal will do in the near future. Already it has been the channel whereby a freight tonnage equal to the weight of all the corn that couldbegrowninayear on a million acres of flrst class land bas passed to market in a single month. The cargoes carried through the canal in July weighed nearly as much as all the people in the United States, and four ïnülion teams and wagons would be required to draw aivequal amount of freight as far, in a month, as the average distance which the vessels using the canal transported their cargoes. Figures of this sort might be multiplied almost indefinitely, but enough fatíf have been given to impresa upon the most hasty reader some idea of the tremendous iuiportance of the trafile oí the lakes and especially of that portion of their commerce which comes from Lake Superior.- Cleveland Leader. Space in the Transportation Building oí the Cotton States and International Exposition at Atlanta has been granted tor the model of the Nicaragua canal as exhvbited in Paris. The national character of this undertaking and its special importance to the development and exision of the industries of the south ake it au exhibit of unusual interest this section. The model is fourteen by forty feet in size and is a representaron in relief of the entire canal Erom San Juan del Korte on the Carribbean Sea to Brito on the Pacific, showing the topography wnter course and lakes. The model will be an operative oue, arranged to show the flow of water froin Lake Nicaragua, the great central reservoir, to either outlet of the camd.

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Courier