Why Ocean Transportation Costs so Little.—(a) The Free Highway. —Transportation by sea costs far less than on land for several reasons. In the first place the ocean is a ready-made highway free to all, hence ocean transportation is not burdened with three classes of heavy expenses that are borne by railroads : (a) Construction. Trains require tracks which may cost only $20,000 per mile in a smooth plain where wood is abundant. Generally, however, the cost is nearer one or even two hundred thousand dollars per mile including roadbed, stations, sidings, and so forth. Among mountains the cost is much greater. The interest paid annually on this expenditure is an important item in the cost of land transportation. (b) Mainte nance. Large sums must be paid by the railroads to maintain the road bed in good condition. Since the tracks wear out, they must constantly be watched by track walkers and repaired by section men. (c) 'Taxes are another item. Even in Maine, where there are only about 2300 miles of track, the railroads pay about $600,000 per year in taxes.
(b) The Small Amount of Power Needed on Waterways.—Another important advantage of transportation by sea is that less power, and hence less coal and oil, are needed by steamers than by trains to do the same work. A person of ordinary strength can push a 40-ton boat away from a wharf, provided and tide do not interfere, but he could not start a freight car weighing forty tons without the aid of some mechanical appliance like a lever. Again, the ocean is absolutely level, while no railroad can be free from grades for more than a limited distance. The grades are expensive because the loads must be lifted. Of course they are not lifted straight up, but the total amount of work is the same as if they were.
(c) The Small Number of Men Needed on Ships.—Another advan tage of water transportation is that a given load on a steamship requires fewer men than on a train. A good-sized freight steamer registered at 12,000 tons can actually carry more than 25,000. Such a ship travels steadily at the rate of about 15 miles an hour, which is quite as fast as a freight train when allowance is made for the time spent in waiting on sidings or in the yards where new trains are made up. To., carry 25,000 tons of freight would require about 20 trains of 3,0 cars each. Each train requires a crew of at least five or six men, and three crews are needed during the twenty-four hours. In addition some attention is required from many station agents, train despatchers, flagmen, switch tenders, oilers, and others, so that the total amount of work is equal to that of about 36 men for each train, or 720 for the 20 trains. A 12,000-ton steamer, if used only for freight, needs a crew of only about 100 men.
(d) The Low Cost of Building Ships as Compared with Locomotives. —The cost of building a steamer is less than that of the corresponding trains. An average locomotive costs $70,000 and a freight car about $3500, so that a 30-car train would cost about $175,000, and 20 trains about $3,500,000. A 12,000-ton freight steamer could be built for $2,000,000.
(e) The Safety of Water Transportation.—From the point of view of safety water transportation has an advantage. The proportion of passengers lost at sea is less than on land, while in the number of accidental injuries to employees the conditions at sea are still more favorable. Every accident costs something for damages, so that even in this respect transportation by water costs less than by land.
The Role of Harbors in Water Transportation.—Transportation on the ocean would be as difficult without harbors as would railway traffic without stations and freight yards. A good modern harbor must furnish (a) protection from winds and waves, (b) good 'depth of water in the channels and close to the shore, (c) abundant anchorage room, and (d) plenty of space for docks. A harbor may possess all these qualities, however, and yet not lead to the growth of a great city, as may be seen at Mount Desert in Maine and in the many deep bays that border the Gulf of California. It needs also (e) abun dant level land for city buildings, (f) easy lines of communication with the interior, and (g) a rich "hinterland" or "back country" in which to• sell imported products in exchange for raw materials, food, and manufactured goods.
(a) Why Harbors Need Protection.—No matter whether people use primitive canoes or huge modern steamships, navigation is much hampered unless the harbors are well protected. Islands and headlands break the force of the winds and waves and thus, by pre venting the boats from being tossed about and perhaps dashed against the shore or against one another, make it easy to load them at all times. So important is protection that millions of dollars are spent annually for breakwaters.
(b) The Constant Demand for Deeper Harbors.—The depth of the water in a harbor becomes increasingly important with the growth of civilization. For small sailing ships, harbors 10 to 20 feet deep are sufficient. So long as such ships were the largest that sailed the ocean it was possible for a port like Salem, Massachusetts, to do more business than Boston, and almost as much as New York, while New buryport, Gloucester, Fall River, New Bedford, New London, and many other places were almost equally important. When the steam engine was invented, and still more when steel took the place of wood in building vessels, the size of ships began to increase rapidly.