Modern Industrial Achievements

Modern Industrial Achievements

BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER

New York's Great Canal One of the greatest of modern undertakings has been obscured by the construction of the Panama Canal, which is, of course, the greatest event to date in modern history. Its importance is world-wide, and there are those who believe it will make important changes in the commercial geography of the globe. This great national undertaking will cost the people of the United States something like $360,000,000. What, however, follows in importance as a close second, is the construction of the great barge canal across the state of New York. This canal will cost that single state something like $130,000,000, proportionately a greater amount than the Panama Canal will cost the people of our entire country. The scandals of graft in connection with the construction of this state canal have been unfortunate, and have obscured in some manner and to some extent the vastness of the undertaking. There can be little doubt that the barge canal will modify greatly the geography of our eastern states and give commerce a new direction. It extends from Lake Erie near Buffalo in the western part of the state in an easterly direction. It taps Lake Ontario and reaches the Hudson River a little above Albany, a distance of something like four hundred and fifty miles. It is estimated that the actual cost of transporting a hundred pounds from Buffalo to New York will be 41 cents. The actual cost of transporting that distance by rail is $1.70. The tariff, however, on the railroad is more than $3 whereas, it is estimated the barge ;

canal will not cost more than 71 cents. What do these abstract figures mean? It means in the first place that the greatest resources of the United States are located around the shores of the great lakes, or, at any rate, not far from their boundaries that ;

all the vast millions of tons of iron ore, now transported to

Pittsburg and other manufacturing centers of Pennsylvania, may be carried at a cheaper rate through water transportation to New York City or its environs. It means that the millions of bushels of wheat which are emptied into the elevators on the shores of the great lakes will now be transported by means of water to the seaports and thence to the nations of Europe. It means in all

MODERN INDUSTRIAL ACHIEVEMENTS 47

probability a shifting- in the great manufacturing centers of our country, especially in the iron factories. The advantage heretofore enjoyed by England has been largely due to the fact that her great factories were only a short distance from the seaports that her advantages of transportation were, ;

MASS

MAP SHOWING THE CANAL FROM LAKE ERIE TO THE HUDSON therefore, sufficient to give her the lead in the industrial life of the world. The disadvantage of the United States has been the long distance in transportation to the seaports before her manufactured wares could reach the markets of the world. This condition will be largely changed. Take as an example the state of New York. The engineer in his report upon the barge canal says, that over 80% of the entire population of the state of New York is within ten miles of the canal and the geography of our ;

country will further show that perhaps one-fifth, or something like twenty millions of people will be served by transportation on the great lakes through the Soo and the barge canals. It will undoubtedly cheapen the transportation of grain and livestock and make it more easy for the people of the United States and Canada t~) compete with the Argentine and Brazil, both of which latter countries are favorably situated for water transportation. The state engineer further computes that the transportation through the Panama Canal for all the nations of the earth will be something like ten million tons per year. That is the estimated amount that will go through the barge canal the first year it i> opened, and the estimate of future transportation fixes the amount at twenty million tons. The historian portraying this fact sav< that this single canal will represent two railroad trains side by side reaching from Buffalo to New York' City. The new barges 1

48 IMPROVEMENT ERA will have greatly increased speed. They will have an immensely larger cargo than the old ones. The Soo canal has today the transportation of seventy-two million tons per annum. Compared with such figures the probable transportation through the Panama Canal would be very insignificant. It does not take a very lively imagination to see that the way is not far distant when greater New York will be extended a score or more of miles that ;

in matter of population, wealth, and industry, it will outdistance London. This canal should mean cheaper living for most of the people of the state of New York. It means cheaper facilities that will increase the industrial importance of that state, and it will not be surprising if factories spring up along the entire distance of this canal. It would seem quite logical that the great furnaces that will hereafter reduce the iron ore to iron will be constructed along the shores of Lake Erie and the finished products carried from that lake to distant parts of the world. When this great canal comes to be operated in conjunction with the Panama Canal we shall see a new industrial life in the Lnited States of which heretofore people have little dreamed.

A New Agricultural Empire It is really difficult to get anything like a correct idea of the immense agricultural resources of northern and western Asiatic Turkey, the great domain known as Asia Minor. The Germans recently, or just before the war, reached a treaty arrangement with Turkey by which the great Bagdad railroad will not g'o far beyond that city, southward, owing to the objections of the English who are absolutely unwilling that the railroad should touch the Persian Gulf, as such a railroad it is believed would be a menace to the British in India. This railroad is now constructed well into Asia Minor and before long it will cross one of the most productive regions in the world, the valley of the Mesopotamia. Here in this wonderful valley there grew in ancient times the nations of Chaldea, Assyria, and Babylon, the wonders of the ancient world. For many centuries the cities of Babylon and Nineveh have been almost entirely lost to the knowledge and interest of man. Here and there remnants of the great canals that watered these fertile plains may be seen. The only city of any importance is that of Bagdad, inhabited chiefly by Arabs and eastern Jews. Lately, extensive surveys have been made, and plans have recently been completed to use the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates in the irrigation of these plains, which, when properly

MODERN INDUSTRIAL ACHIEVEMENTS 49

cultivated, will grow millions of bushels of grain, millions of tons of alfalfa, as well as almost unlimited quantities of cotton. For some time the railroad franchise into the valley of the Mesopotamia has been held up through the objections which the English have had to the extension of the road beyond Bagdad. Before the war, however, agreement was reached between Germany and England by which it has been decided that the road should stop at Basra. Announcement was made that money would be immediately forthcoming for the completion of the road, and the construction of the greatest irrigation system known to the world since the completion of the Assuan clam in Egypt. The war and Turkey's desire to abrogate all treaties will doubtless delay the enterprise, but it is to be a world achievement at no distant day. The country traversed' by this road, and that which will be reached by spur lines running from it, contains almost unlimited resources in gold, coal, minerals of various kinds, and in agricultural products. For years the Turks have refused all concessions intended to reach these rich resources of the country. When once the railroad is completed, a new empire will be added to the agricultural world. Some years ago one of the engineers who was then making a preliminary survey of an irrigation system in Mesopotamia remarked to the writer: "Some day we shall be sending out to the 'Mormons' a request to come to Mesopotamia and teach irrigation to the Arabs and to the Europeans who may settle in that country." For many years the Germans have been emigrating to Brazil and the Argentine Republic in great numbers. It is believed that when this railroad is completed, if things at all proceed as before the war, German emigration will move in the direction of Asia Minor and of the Mesopotamia, where modern methods will be employed in exploiting the resources of that wonderful country. It is not unlikely that settlers of various parts of Europe will go into this part of the Turkish Empire. Indeed, it would not be strange if some of the more adventurous in the United States also betook

themselves to that country, in order to enjoy the opportunities for agriculture that promise to be opened within the next decade to the people of Asia Minor. It is a wonderful country. There is no country in the world today that has perhaps the same latent

resources that are found in Asia Minor and in the valley of Mesopotamia. The heat in the latter place, to be sure, is intense during the hottest summer months. It is almost unbearable. The natives dig heir huts down deep into the soil to escape the intensity of the heat from which they suffer during midsummer. In the winter time, however, the climate is delightful, except perhaps for a week or ten days, when the severe storms that sweep over Russia and the Black Sea reach the valley of the Mesopotamia and cause considerable suffering. The climate, however, will undoubtedly

50 IMPROVEMENT ERA be greatly changed by the introduction of agriculture. The spread of the great rivers will do much to bring down the temperature of midsummer, and the presence of large grain fields will modify the intense heat. In Asia Minor conditions are quite different. There the climate is very similar to what we have in Utah. The heat in summer is not oppressive, and the winter months are not severe. If after the war an understanding can be reached by Turkey, Great Britain, and Germany, such as they had just before its outbreak, new interest will be taken in the direction of Asia Minor, and its development will be rapid and of far-reaching importance to the whole civilized world. It will be a new factor in the production of grain and livestock, and not many years will pass before it will begin to rival the Argentine Republic. Capital from Europe, after the turmoil of today is adjusted, will flow into that land in almost unmeasured quantities, and the world will feel the new impulse given to commercial life by the discovery and exploitation of the natural resources of this almost unbounded empire.

The Viewpoint One with unshaded eyes doth view the sun, Nor fears to bask within its radiance, While oft the vision of another one Is clouded by fallacious imagery.

Who sees things as they are in verity, He counts the cost and weighs his every deed, And folds about him robe of charity, To answer other's urgent' call of need.

But he whose lens is dimmed by sophistry, What knows he of the depth and breadth and height Through which the soul must pass that fain would be Forever pressing on to fuller light.

'Twere folly to suppose that sight should give To each a meed of like enlightenment, For one hath learned without his shell to live, While one within yet lieth dwarfed and bent. Grace Ingles Frost