tons; new vessels, sail and steam, 134,000 tons-aggregate 609,787 tons; average tonnage of sail and steam craft 277 tons each. 10th. What is the total amount of freight carried by each class passed Fort Wayne annually during the last six years? Answer. The amount of freight is about equally divided among the sail and steam craft in proportion to their capacity, except the general merchandise is mostly carried by the steamers, and coal and salt on sail-vessels. The total commerce of the Detroit River for 1872 was 9,116,570 tons. 11th. What is the value of the freights carried in each of these classes of vessels annually during the last six years? Answer. We have no means of determining the proportion of value of freights carried by sail and steam vessels, but we think it safe to say that the total value is $500,000,000. 12th. What is the value of these vessels ? Answer. Thirty-six million seven hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars. The data for the valuation is the underwriter's valuation. with 25 per cent. added. This estimate will come below the true value, as we have verified by many cases within our personal knowledge. 13th. How many of them carry passengers? Answer. Ten per cent. of all steam-vessels. 14th. What is the number of passengers?, Answer. We have no means of ascertaining. 15th. What is the number which are towed, and what is the number of tows? Answer. Seventy-five per cent. are towed. 16th. What percentage of those towed number eight vessels in a tow or more? Answer. One-tenth. 17th. Please furnish the estimate of cost of special apparatus for lowering top-masts, and the time and cost of one such lowering and rais ing with the apparatus in passing bridge for a three-masted schooner of 1,000 tons. ་ Answer. We have applied to ship-builders for an estimate of the cost of such apparatus, but as yet have not been able to obtain it. 18th. Please furnish us with any information which, in your judgment, will have any bearing on the questions before us. Permit us to call your attention to some considerations which, we think, have an important bearing on the policy of bridging the Detroit River: 1st. The increase of tonnage of vessels navigating the river and lakes is 20 per cent. annually, and there is every reason to believe it will increase in the same ratio for the next decade. This increase is quite equal to if not greater than the increase of railroads in Michigan or the Western States. 2d. For long distances produce and merchandise can be carried by water at far less cost than by rail. For instance, some of our largest vessels will carry 60,000 bushels of wheat from Chicago to Buffalo. To transport the same quantity by railroad would take 9 trains of 20 cars each, or 9 engines and 180 cars; the cost of the vessel and equipments, $75,000 to $80,000. Nine engines and 180 grain-cars would cost not less than $225,000, to say nothing of cost of building the railroad, culverts, bridges, station-houses, &c. Then the engines and cars wear out three times as fast as vessels. We think it a self-evident proposition that any obstruction to the river and lake navigation will increase the cost of transporting the products of the great West to the Eastern States and the sea-board. The policy of bridging the Detroit River, we suppose, depends upon the answer to a single question: Will it be a general benefit to the whole people of this country? If bridging the river will give cheaper transportation, and thereby better reward the toil of the farmer, the miner, and mechanic, then the bridging should be allowed. But if the producers will be injured for the benefit of the middle-men-the carriers-then it should not be allowed, though demanded by all the wealthy corporations in the country. The General Government has expended some half a million dollars to remove the natural obstructions to our river navigation. This removal of obstruction by constructing the Saint Clair Flats Canal is of immense benefit to navigation and the whole people. Now it is proposed to place artificial obstructions, not below the water, but above it. We consider it by no means certain but that the latter obstruction would be quite as serious as the former was. Individuals of moderate capital can build and equip a vessel and enter the market in the carrying-taade as a competitor with other vesselowners and railroads. When freight is scarce this competition carries the price down to the lowest point. For instance, last May grain was carried from Chicago to Buffalo for 1.66 mills per ton for one mile, or $1.32 per ton from Chicago to Buffalo. The owners of vessels are so numerous, they are scattered so widely apart from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior, and their interests are so varied, that any consolidation or general combination is an impossibility. The reverse of all this is true in regard to railroads. It requires large and associated capital to build and equip railroads, and when built they are often under the control of one man, or, at best, a very few. There is not and cannot be competition and individual enterprise among the owners (stockholders) as there is between vessel-owners. Even where there are competing lines of railroads, mutual interests lead to consolidation, and competition is at an end. We hazard nothing in saying that the only competition that is really worth anything to the producers of this country against railroad monopoly and high freights is water transportation. It is a well-known fact to all experts and men engaged in crossing the river during the winter months that railroad facilities are entirely inadequate and unfit for the work they attempt to perform. They are a long way behind in the construction and capabilities of their boats now in use to perform the work, as compared with modern-built boats. To bear me out in this statement, I call your attention to the ferry steamer Victoria, built and equipped by one of our oldest and most efficient ferrymen, Captain Clinton. She is but 192 tons burden; was completed and put on the ferry in December, 1872; and though last winter was the most severe within the recollection of that most familiar veteran, the oldest inhabitant, yet I am told by her captain that in no case during last winter was she longer than 15 minutes in crossing the river, unless the detention was from other causes than ice. It is plain to be seen that if a vessel of the size of the Victoria can cross the river in the coldest weather (such as we had last winter) in 15 minutes, a vessel of a thousand tons burden, built in a first-class manner, would find no difficulty in crossing in a much shorter time. I claim, without fear of intelligent contradiction, that four such steamers could promptly carry all freight and passengers that the Great Western and Michigan Central Railroads could bring to the river in coldest weather, and in moderate weather two of them could do it all. It is a well-known fact that weather severe enough to bridge the De troit River with ice reduces the capacity of the railroads in transporting freight about one-half. During the severe weather of last winter all railroads having no rivers to cross in about this latitude were delayed in their freight transit nearly as much as was the Great Western and Michigan Central Railroads. I will state here that where the steamer Victoria crosses the river so successfully is at right angles with the current; that is to say, one landing is directly opposite the other, so that no time is lost or expense incurred which the railway ferries are subject to by starting down stream and landing up stream, thereby doubling the distance by crossing the river diagonally. I think I am correct in saying it was the original intention of the Great Western Railway to cross the river at right angles from the Michigan Central depot, as they procured the right of way along the river shore, and drove piles for a railroad track to a point directly op posite said Central depot. Boats for taking cars across the river should be built double-enders. and cross the river on the shortest line. Especially should they cross in this manner during cold weather. Then by frequent passage the river would be kept open at the point of crossing, and neither freight nor passenger trains would be much delayed, and in no winter need there be any partial delay over a period not exceeding twenty-five days in each month. Both these roads, I believe, have the necessary ground to make suitable slips to receive the double-enders, and thereby save the trouble of turning round in the ice, as is now done by all the ferries. One million dollars would build and equip these four boats. It is claimed that there is a large number of boats pass the Chicago bridges without trouble; this is the fact; these vessels passing the Chicago bridges are in a good harbor where winds cannot affect them as in an open roadstead; their canvas is all in, their anchors on board; but most of these vessels are moved with two tugs, one at the bow and one at the stern, and this at an average cost of fifty dollars for each vessel. I think boats can be built that will transport the freight across the river at Detroit for the interest on the cost of a bridge and the cost of managing it, and at an average delay of no more time than would be caused by the opening of the draws in the bridge for the passage of vessels, understanding, of course, that vessels have the preference in pass ing the draw as against freight-trains. G. W. BISSELL, Committee. MEMORIAL FROM DETROIT AGAINST OBSTRUCTING LAKE-NAVIGATION BY BRIDGING DETROIT RIVER, AND FACTS TOUCHING THE SAME. To the Legislature of Michigan, in Senate and House: The undersigned, residents of Detroit, and mostly persons engaged in business, respectfully but earnestly ask that you take no action indorsing or encouraging the building of a railroad-bridge across Detroit River, here or at any point, and we offer the following as some of our reasons for this request: First. Such a bridge would not relieve or expedite the business of railroad, while it would be a serious hinderance to the much larger busi ness of the great shipping interest of the lakes, and thus raise the cost of transportation, to the injury of the people. In round numbers, the 2,500 vessels on the lakes pass any given point on the river (Detroit for instance) 33,000 times during seven and a half months averaging one vessel each ten minutes, night and day, and sometimes this average is once in five minutes, with successions of tows of four to eight vessels, which would prevent a draw-bridge being closed for hours, and of course prevent meanwhile the passage of all cars. We leave it to your judg ment to see of what use a railroad-bridge thus constantly obstructed could be. It is also impossible for a long tow of vessels to control its motion so accurately as to pass a draw without danger of accident. Second. Even if a tunnel beneath the river is abandoned, (for which there is no good reason, as the late statement of the superintendent herewith offered shows,) powerful ferry-boats will serve the railroad better than a bridge. The International is an iron ferry-boat used at Port Huron by the Grand Trunk Railroad, and has made frequent trips across the river and back in twenty minutes, carrying twenty-one loaded freight-cars, and its yearly expenses are but $20,000. Allow one hour for each trip, and this boat could transfer across the river at Detroit four hundred cars each twenty-four hours, and three such boats would transfer twelve hundred cars per day, at a total cost of not over $100,000 per year, while the mere interest on the cost of a bridge, not counting wear and damage, would be over $200,000. Responsible parties in our city are ready to contract to transfer all cars, &c., at less than the interest and wear of the proposed bridge. During the past winter the ferry-boats here have actually carried across the river all cars offered from this side, and any hinderances suf fered have been caused by the inability of the Great Western Railroad of Canada to send east, from the Canadian side of the river, the freight sent them; and this inability compelled the Michigan Central Railroad to lend this Canadian road some twelve or more locomotives to help carry off its accumulated freights. At Toledo, where the Maumee River is bridged, we hear of cars waiting for weeks to go east; so that granting hinderances here, they are there also during the past winter. Third. The ice is not a barrier to rapid passage of boats five months in the year, as has been stated, but not over an average of forty days, for a term of years. Fourth. Far more freight is carried by water than by rail, and at lower rates. From Milwaukee, in 1872, while 13,000,000 bushels of wheat and 700,000 barrels of flour were forwarded by water, only 326,000 bushels of wheat and 490,000 barrels of flour were sent by rail, and from Chicago the proportions are nearly the same. As to comparative prices, we would ask if railroads will carry freight in the winter at the same rates they do in summer, when compelled to meet the competition of vessels? We apprehend they would hasten to abandon both bridge and tunnel rather than make such agreement. We would also suggest that when railroads will transport the grain and flour of Michigan farmers from the interior to Detroit as low even as they do the products of Illinois farmers from Chicago, a proposal to build a bridge across our river, to the hinderance of navigation, would come with better grace than now. For instance, the freight on flour from Marshall to Detroit is 34 cents per barrel, while through freight from Chicago, treble the distance, is but 30 cents, now that no lake competition is to be met. These are some reasons, among many, why we believe our request to be just, for the public good, and not injurious to the railroad interest, which we wish to prosper, but not at the expense of the larger shipping interest or of the people. We would also suggest that the thousands of vessel-owners for whom we address you are scattered along the lakes, in many harbors and ports, while the railroad management is concentrated in a few hands, ready to act at once and to gain a hearing easily. C. C. Blodgett, Miles Joy, Wm. Phelps, L. J. Staples & Co., Funda, Esselstyn & Co., Fenton, McWilliams & Co., John R. Gillett, John P. Sullivan, John W. Thompson, D. Carter, N. J. Rodier, Eber Ward, E. S. Ketsey, Dunlay, Donaldson & Co., C. Hurlbut, |