COM MEIICE AND INDUSTRY. Buffalo is one of the most marked of large American cities in its recent development, and owes its prosperity to commerce. Although the city is so well located for a great commercial centre, originally the only harbor was in the shallow water of BuffaloCreek. The United States Government has constructed a series of breakwaters, forming both an inner and outer harbor, and is building a new break water to Stony Point. which will increase great ly the area protected from storms. The State has constructed Erie Basin, at the terminus of the Erie Canal, and the city has deepened Buf falo Creek, and constructed a ship canal to in crease the wharf facilities. There is now a wharf frontage of S miles. with ample room for further extensions along Niagara River and along the lake.
Several great steamship lines and innumer able independent vessels ply to the chief ports on the Great Lakes, and there are several ferries to the Canada side, besides the International Bridge, completed at a cost of $1,500,000. The city is connected with the tide-waters of the Hudson by the Erie Canal, and with ports on Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River by the Welland Canal, and is also the terminus or connecting - point of a score of railroads. Among them are the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern; Michigan Central; Grand Trunk; New York Central; West Shore: Lackawanna: Wabash; Pennsylvania; New York, Lake Erie and Western; Lehigh Valley: Western New York and Pennsylvania; Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg; and New York. Chicago and Saint Louis. Al belt-line railroad encircles the city, affording valuable facilities for intercommunica tion.
The commerce of Buffalo by these various means of transportation is very great. With a season of only about 246 days in the year, Buffalo ranks with the leading American and European ports in extent of traffic. The im mense quantity of flour and grain moved from the Western States to the seaboard constitutes the most important feature of its commerce; hut live stock, lumber, and coal, iron ore, and fish, also, are of importance. Some part of the lumber and iron ore which arrive at this end of Lake Erie is received at Tonawanda (q.v.), a suburb to the north, on Niagara River, but Buffalo receives large quantities of each. Over
15,000.000 pounds of fish are received annually, mainly from Georgian Bay, and are distributed as far east as Boston and as far west as Denver. The horse market and sheep market of Buffalo are the largest in the United States, and in the trade in cattle and hogs Buffalo is among the leading American cities. The material facilities tor handling this enormous traffic' form a most important feature of Buffalo. The first grain elevator in the world was built in Buffalo in 1813. and now there are some fifty elevators, transfer towers, and floating elevators. These represent an investment of over $13,000,000, can handle in one day 5,0011,000 bushels of grain, and store at one time 29,000,000 bushels. The coal-docks have a capacity of 29.000 tons a day, and on the eastern outskirts of the city are the enormous coal-stocking trestles, in which the railway companies keep their accumulated supply. In East Buffalo are the railroad stock yards. 75 acres in extent, affording transfer fa cilities for through freight, and sales-yards for the local supply of live stock.
In addition to vast commercial activities, Buf falo's manufacturing interests are extensive and varied. In the production of foundry and ma chine-shop products, including stoves, nails, etc., and agricultural implements, the city ranks among the foremost. Other industries are slaughtering and refining petro leum, and ship-building; clothing, flouring and grist-mill products, brick, stone. lime, and stucco, malt and distilled liquors. soap and candles. starch. furniture, and tobacco and cigars, are extensively produced. Besides these a re im mense establishments manufacturing saddlery and harness, cars, awnings, tents, sails, willow ware, carriages, wagons. cutlery. patent medi cines, surgical appliances. etc. Power from the new electric plant at Niagara Falls (q.v.1. brought through three circuits with an aggre gate capacity of 30,000 horse-power, is already used in Buffalo to a large extent, and the cheap and abundant supply from this source justifies the prediction of a rapid expansion of manufac turing industries in the near future.
The receipts for 1900 of the Buffalo post office amounted to over $S00.000. a figure which represents an increase of nearly 100 per cent. in the last decade.