194 
Modern Business Geography 
Fic. 138. The ore boats, like the grain boats, are built especially to carry one kind of cargo, and 
are loaded by means of special loading devices that take the place of hundreds of laborers. 
constructed. The engines are placed well aft and the pilot house 
and quarters for the crew well forward (Fig. 138). The chief expense 
in shipping by water is the cost of transshipping the cargo from cars 
to steamers, or back again. To reduce this expense at the ore ports 
of Duluth, Superior, Ashland, and elsewhere, the ore trains run out 
upon elevated docks where the ore is dumped from the cars directly 
into bins. From the bins it slides out through hatches into the hold 
of a steamer without any handling. A steamer can thus be loaded 
in less than an hour. At the end of the lake journey at such ports as 
Cleveland, Ashtabula, Erie, and Buffalo, huge self-filling grab-buckets, 
capable of lifting fifteen tons at a time, are let down into the hold, 
where they can scoop out an entire cargo of perhaps 14,000 tons in six 
hours. 
So important is the commerce of these inland waters that it influ- 
ences the cost of living not only among the millions of people who live 
near the lakes, but among those of the manufacturing regions of the 
North Atlantic states, England, and Germany. All these people con- 
sume goods carried on the lakes, and the goods are a trifle cheaper 
because of the low cost of transportation. Even the goods carried by 
the railroads are cheaper than they would be if there were not a cheap 
carrying service on the lakes, for the competition of the lake steamers 
keeps down the railway freight rates. 
BOATS ON RIVERS AND CANALS 
Rivers and canals afford a cheap means of transportation far into 
the interior of the land, but their use requires a special kind of boat. 
Since most rivers are shallow in places, flat-bottomed boats have to be