Of course, then, it was New York which was benefited by the existence of these routes; but if you will look at our last cañal-auditor's report you will find, so far has this been changed, that last year only onetwelfth of the freight which reached Albany by the Oswego and Erie Canal was the product of the State of New York, and eleven-twelfths of it was the product of other States, assisted on its way to market by the former expenditures of our State. And it is because it is the country, and not our State alone, which is to be benefited by the making of these routes of navigation, that the country have a right to call upon the Congress of the United States to make the expenditure necessary for it from the National Treasury, and not from the treasury of any State.

Mr. FORT. I am requested, Mr. Churchill, to call your attention to a fact which has been stated in private conversation; that these reservoirs being built, these streams, many of them, have deep ravines, which would be of benefit.

Mr. CHURCHILL. That is true. Any one who has ever been fishing up in the north woods will know what endless opportunity there is for the construction of reservoirs on the head-waters of the Black River, the Mohawk, and others, and especially in ravines, where the land is almost valueless, and where, at the least possibility of expense, such a work could be constructed.

Mr. FORT. Would it not be well for you to add a word about the improvements going on in our harbor?

Mr. CHURCHILL. Perhaps I should say one word with regard to our own harbor and our facilities for doing business.

Our present mills grind about 5,000,000 bushels of western wheat per annuin. Our elevators have a capacity of elevating 600,000 bushels a day, and of discharging at the same time 600,000 bushels. In other words, they have a capacity of movement of 1,200,000 bushels a dayone-half in elevating, and the other half in discharging on board of canal-boats.

A copy of our harbor-map has been put into the hands of the clerk of your committee.

We have in our present harbor, between the lower bridge and the mouth of the river, about three miles of dockage.

The General Government is constructing an outside pier which will add about one hundred acres of deep water to our present harbor-room. About 2,600 feet, I think, of the pier has been constructed. The entire pier will be about 6,000 feet long. Nearly one-half of its length has been completed. When this harbor shall be finished, with docks and slips, it will add about four miles more to our wharfage, considerably more than doubling the present facilities of our harbor.

Mr. SHERMAN. How do the waters of the Black River descend to the Mohawk ?

Mr. CHURCHILL. From Lyons Falls, upon the Black River, the Black River Canal runs through Booneville with a continuous descent to Rome, where it enters the Erie Canal. The main use of that canal is as a feeder to the Erie Canal, and it takes whatever of the waters of the Black River are required for the purposes of navigation of the Rome level from the Black River.

There is at present a single reservoir upon the head-waters of the Black River above that point over fifteen miles long. It is an artificial lake over fifteen miles long, the waters of which can be used for this purpose.

The upper waters of the Black River are largely fed from ponds or

lakes in very considerable numbers, which can easily be made reservoirs, any one of them, at no expense, or substantially no expense, for land damages, to increase the flow of water through the Black River Canal on to this level.

Adjourned.

BUFFALO, NEW YORK,
Friday, September 19, 1873.

Mr. LEWIS, of the New York State senate. Mr. Chairman: We have invited some of the commercial men of our city to meet you to make some statements touching the question which you are here to investigate. They have not prepared themselves at all elaborately, and, in fact, I think have made no preparation particularly, but they are men of large experience, who have been engaged in the transportation business for a number of years, and will make some statements to you, and will be glad to answer any questions that the committee may desire to put to them.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee are not advised upon what points. they desire to address us, and, consequently, the gentlemen will make such statements as they may please.

GEORGE S. HAZARD. Mr. Chairman: I did not expect to say anything to-night really, and the lot seems to have been cast upon me to open this debate. If I thought you expected any fine-spun arguments, I should go to my seat at once.

I suppose you come here for plain matter-of-fact, and to get facts from practical men on this great subject of cheap transportation, a problem which does not seem to have been solved entirely only in the minds of some who have some particular hobby to ride. Some think it is by rail and others by water, and there may be those who think it can be done by balloon or some aerial way. But, sir, I believe we have the means of reducing the prices of transportation within our own grasp. I believe that Senator Conkling, in his remarks in Canada the other day, took the right ground, that this country is determined, and it should be the policy, to not only keep the trade within her own limits, but to grasp it all, or as much as she can, by a fair competition.

I would not disparage railroad transportation. Railroads have accomplished an infinite amount of good, and they are necessary in the economy of transportation and cannot be dispensed with; but while they are necessary, water is also necessary, and, in my opinion, the cheapest mode of transportation that can possibly be had.

We have a great line of communication here by lakes in connection with the Erie Canal. I need not go back to the history of the Erie Canal, as you are all aware that it was the first means adopted in this country really for the cheapening of transportation. It reduced the transportation of a barrel of flour or a ton of merchandise, between Albany and Buffalo, from $70 to $7 a ton. It has been constantly reducing the price of transportation ever since it was created. It is the great regulator of transportation in this part of the country. The inauguration of the Erie Canal was a great event in the country. The boats then used were of small capacity. I think they carried but 175 tons or 150 tons; perhaps about 2,500 bushels of wheat was all they carried in a canal 40 feet by 4. The canal was, as you are aware, increased to 70 feet. I think there was a previous increase of the size of the canal, if I am not mistaken, but the last increase in size was 70

feet by 7, although the canal has never been made the full extent that it was designed, 70 feet by 7. It is really only 70 feet by 6, or a little over 6, admitting a boat of about 240 tons.

What we want now, is to have a canal that has three or four times the capacity of the present canal. The present canal's capacity is really for down tonnage, not over 3,000,000 tons for the season of 210 days. Perhaps the season of navigation would not be over 200 days, and some years it is only about 180. The average, probably, would not be over 200 or 205. The tonnage of down freight cannot exceed over 3,200,000 tons, from the fact that the locks will only pass a given number of boats during the twenty-four hours, and that is about 200 boats in the twentyfour hours to both locks, which will give, during the season of navigation, about 3,200,000 tons. This was the report of the constitutional convention committee in 1867. That gives 3,200,000 tons during the season of 205 days, as I said.

Now the question comes, at what rate can the owners of boats transport property upon the canal with its present class of boats? There are points below which they cannot go, and we may say that that would be about $2.75 to $3 a ton, to say nothing of the tolls that go to the State. That would probably be the least that any capitalist could build boats and place them upon this canal for, with the prospect of getting a fair remuneration for the amount of his investment. Now while boats get sometimes twice that for carrying property through this canal, that is simply a matter of supply and demand, but when it comes to a dull season the prices of transportation are reduced very materially. They go down to the very lowest point that boats can carry. As has been shown this season, boats have been carrying wheat from here to New York for 7 cents a bushel, when, according to the rate that I propose and that I have mentioned, $2.75 or $3 a ton would be 9 cents a bushel. But boats have been carrying wheat, as I say, for 7 cents a bushels over tolls, which is not a living rate. They cannot carry it for that.

Now the question arises, how are we going to provide ways and means to cheapen this transportion? The present class of boats cannot carry freight for any less than they are carrying it now. The class of boats of this size must have a fair remuneration for their tonnage for the freight from here to New York, and unless the canal is enlarged and the boats enlarged the prices must remain as they are. Therefore the solution of that question will come to an enlargement of this canal, and to an enlargement of locks sufficient to accommodate a boat of 600 or 650 tons. If that should be done I believe that boats can carry wheat from here to New York at 5 cents a bushel instead of 9 cents, and make more money than the present class of boats can at 9 cents. If the canal was enlarged steamers of 600 or 650 tons would be placed upon it, which would carry, instead of, as the present class of boats now carry, 8,000, from 20,000 to 25,000 bushels of wheat. They would make their trip in six days from here to New York. The present class of boats require twelve, which would be about as short a trip as they could make, and oftentimes fourteen and sixteen.

Therefore a large boat with the enlarged canal would be able to make two trips to one of the present class, and would carry four times-yes, six times-the quantity that the present class of boats can carry. The same principle would rule as with the large class of canal-boats that exists on the lake, and with ocean vessels, that the larger the vessels the cheaper the freight; the more they can carry, of course the cheaper transportation becomes. Our lake craft has been increasing in size for the last fifteen or twenty years. Twenty-five years ago the largest lake

craft carried only 8,000 bushels, or, at the very outside, 10,000 bushels of corn or wheat. Now we have vessels carrying 70,000 bushels, and the size of this class of vessels is limited entirely by the depth of water at certain parts of the lakes. For instance, over the Saint Clair Flats are spots where there is only about 13 feet of water, and our vessels just rub and go over there; and then, again, at the mouth of the Detroit River is another shallow place of 13 feet, called the Lime Kilns. There are vessels dragged frequently, and all they can carry is 13 or 13 feet of water. Sometimes the wind is down the lake and depresses the water at that end of the lake, and then the vessels have to wait before they can get over those obstructions. If those obstructions were removed our vessels would be able to increase their tonnage about 200 tons for every foot of water that could be deepened at those points. Consequently transportation would be cheapened in proportion. A vessel that can carry 2,000 tons can certainly bring freight cheaper than one that can carry only 1,000, because, although the investment is larger, still the expense of handling and of running the vessel is not in proportion to the remuneration for her freight.

I have a paper here which I would like to read in this connection, and which was handed to me by a friend, he being a little too modest himself to write:

BUFFALO, September 19, 1873.

To the honorable the Committee of the Senate

of the United States on Routes of Transportation:

In furtherance of the object for which your committee is constituted, the following is respectfully submitted:

Vessels engaged in the commerce of Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie are constructed with reference to the limit upon their draught of water in crossing Saint Clair Flats, by shallowness of water at the upper and lower ends of Lake Saint Clair, by obstructions at what are known as the "Limekilns,” in Detroit River, and also at the mouth of Detroit River off Bar Point.

An examination of the charts will show that there is abundance of water at all other points from the foot of Lake Michigan to the foot of Lake Erie.

The water upon Saint Clair Flats the present season is deeper by 15 to 18 inches than it was last season, being now 14 feet; it is about 15 feet deep over the "Limekilns," and at Bar Point it is from 17 to 18 feet deep.

The draught of water permitted at the places named is the standard adopted for dredging out the principal harbors upon the lakes.

With the present approved models for lake carrying-craft, and their dimensions, say from 220 to 240 feet keel and 38 feet beam, and with a depth of hold corresponding to such increased depth of water as may be obtained, the carrying capacity of the vessel will be increased at least 200 tons for every additional foot of water.

There are no formidable obstacles in the way of obtaining at least 5 or more feet additional depth of water at the places named. The cost would be comparatively small, the deepening of the flats and of Lake Saint Clair, where needed, being a matter of dredging soft mud; the "Limekilns," a rock excavation of less than a quarter of a mile in extent; and off Bar Point, the removal of bowlders and sunken wrecks, (if any,) and dredging a channel through gravel to deep water. The advantages resulting in the interest of cheap transportation would be very great.

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The increase of depth of water at the places named would be lowed, as a matter of course, at once by a corresponding increase of depth of water at the principal harbors on the lakes, and more or less extension of the piers to deeper water would be necessary at most of the harbors.

It is thought that no artificial harbors for safety would be required growing out of the proposed increase in depth of water, the present natural harbors, and the artificial one now about being constructed by the United States Government on Lake Huron, being all-sufficient, so far as respects draught of water.

The time of your committee will not be taken up with any elaborate argument in support of this scheme, it being apparent it would at once lead to a decrease in cost of transportation, utilize to an extent quite within reasonable reach the most important natural water-channel in the country, and that channel a highway, the rates of transportation over which are regulated by the laws of supply and demand, out of the reach of monopoly, and hence a healthy and most powerful conservator. I believe that the solution of the whole question of cheap transporta tion is the enlargement of the Erie Canal, whether it is to be done by State aid or by the Government aid, and I do not know any more wor thy object, if the Government is to spend money in this way, than the Erie Canal. The tonnage of the Erie Canal is strictly national in its character. Nine-tenths of it is the product of other States than the State of New York. I believe last year, if I can recollect figures, that the down tonnage of the Erie Canal, the proportion from other States, was two million four hundred-odd thousand tons, while the tonnage of the State of New York was only a little over 200,000 tons; a little less than 10 per cent. So you see that the State of New York, so far as the use of the Erie Canal is concerned to them in transporting their property, is not very seriously interested. It is the avenue of a great commerce, it is true, and her people are benefited by it very much undoubtedly in the transportation, and it would be a very good thing for the people of the State of New York, undoubtedly, to have this canal enlarged, but how much better it would be for the people of other States, large groups of States, not only to the west of it, who depend upon getting their property to market at cheap rates, and for the people who live at the other end-at the East, who want cheap food-how important it is for them, more so than for the State of New York, because the products of the State of New York have to come in competition with the low-priced products of the West. Consequently, the people of the State of New York are not benefited so much by the enlargement of this canal. It is more for the people who live in other States. It is for the purpose of extending the area of production that this cheap transportation should be established. It is for extending the area of production to those great and extensive lands at the West, those vast prairies, because there is a limit which you cannot go beyond. You cannot bring corn beyond a certain limit unless you bring it a cheap rate. It does not require a great many hundred miles of transportation to use up a hundred bushels of corn.

And then you may go so far beyond the point of transportation that the farmer will prefer to burn his corn to giving ten bushels for getting one to market. In fact, a friend of mine observed to-night, he thought that the transportation ought to be cheap enough to enable the farmers certainly to save seed enough out of what they raise to plant the next year. I think so too. I think he ought to have a little more than that. The Erie Canal certainly has exerted a most beneficial influence. The large cities at the West owe their prosperity, and I may say almost their