"HOW THE CLAIMANT DELAYS THE PAYMENT OF CLAIMS" is the subject of an article for the next issue by Thos. C. Smith, Freight Claim Agent, Central Railroad Company of New Jersey. In the opening part of his article Mr. Smith, in touching upon the fact that few people have formed more than a hazy idea of the magnitude of the railroad business, says: "If Father Adam, according to Biblical chronology, had started a mixed train running down through the centuries at a speed of 22 miles per hour, carrying 40 passengers and 346 tons of freight, and if the train had never stopped from then to now, it still would not have covered as great a distance or performed as large a passenger or freight service as the trains of the United States do in a normal year."

IN LINE WITH THE POLICY of SHIPPER AND CARRIER to give its readers the best information obtainable regarding various cities and ports, the May number will present Galveston, Tex. Unique as a harbor, this enterprising port has, since the days of blockade runners of Civil War fame, steadily developed and is now one of the greatest concentration centers for crude oil on the Gulf.

JUST WHAT THE PROBLEMS ARE and how those connected with the mining industry view them will be presented in an article on this subject by Me-Kinley W. Kreigh, Chief Transportation Division, American Mining Congress. Because of the widespread interest so far as rates in their relation to basic commodities are concerned, we believe Mr. Kreigh's treatment of this important subject of exceptional interest at this time.

IN AN ESPECIALLY WELL ILLUSTRATED ARTICLE by H. N. Knowlton, formerly head of the packing service department, Safepack Mills, "How to Build a Crate" will be instructively presented. Besides embracing the features of crate construction, kinds of lumber, nailing and other essentials, the author has some interesting things to say about strapping and marking.

READERS OF THE

Daily Traffic Letter Service

KNOW EVERYTHING OF IMPORTANCE THAT'S GOING ON IN THE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION FIELDS

BECAUSE:

The Daily Traffic Letter Service is a concise but eminently readable and authentic digest of the activities of the Interstate Commerce Commission, its Reports, Decisions, Hearings and Dockets; Car Situation; Embargoes; Proposed Rate Increases and Decreases; Important Tariffs Filed; together with a summary of matters appearing in periodicals and bulletins; Reports of Meetings and Conventions; New Services; Improved Methods and Facilities-in fact ALL matters pertinent to the Traffic Department and affecting the shipment from the standpoint of its rate, classification, packing, handling, loading, warehousing, transferring and special privileges.

It is just as if you had a representative at Washington and a special secretary in your office to read everything being published on traffic daily, who culled, sorted and wrote in abstract form for quick reference all the material on just those topics of interest to you. In the Daily Traffic letter Service a corps of competent editors do this private secretarial service for you for a few cents a day.

Are You Qualified To Manage a Traffic Bureau?

AN AFFILIATION WANTED IN EVERY TRADE CENTER

WITH

7ITH EXCEPTIONAL FACILITIES for interesting shippers (now in touch with thousands, large and small, in all parts of the country), this Department is directing its attention to the establishment of Traffic Service Bureaus, to be affiliated as a nation-wide organization.

This message is directed to:

The man who is operating or has contemplated opening a consulting Traffic Bureau in his locality. The man whose study and experience along shipping lines has given him the confidence to tackle traffic managerial problems.

The man who is able and willing to put some of his time (at the start), or a nominal investment towards building up a business FOR HIMSELF.

If you reside at or in close proximity to a shipping point embracing 25,000 or more population, and mean business, you are invited to make inquiry regarding our DISTRICT ASSOCIATE PLAN.

Where desired, we furnish all plans, supplies and equipment necessary for a proper start.

Write fully. We want to know whether married or single, experience, eferences, whether operating a bureau at present and like details. To the man possessing the business acumen to clearly perceive a good proposition when presented, and to act with despatch, will be afforded an opportunity of securing immediate financial returns.

With perfect assurance that your application will be treated in strict confidence, and no obligation incurred, address

W

HEN Jacques Cartier, undeterred by the almost insurmountable obstacles that beset every mile of his journey, first penetrated the fastnesses of the River St. Lawrence, he found, at a distance of some one thousand miles from the sea, a small Indian village on the bank of the river. The mountair in the background caught his fancy, and

he named it Mont Royal, little thinking that his choice of a title would endure throughout the years, or that the hamlet of his discovering was even then destined to be the site of a prosperous and important city, to-day known as Montreal, the metropolis of Canada.

Needless to say, there was not then-nor for many years later-any Port of Montreal, but as population in the surrounding country began to assume those proportions usually associated with civilized occupation of territory,

a certain amount of local trading grew up along the shore of the St. Lawrence. At the beginning of the nineteenth century we find a growing inclination on the part of commerce to make Montreal-instead of Quebec-the destination of such vessels as came to Canada from overseas, and the earliest definite agitation to improve the ship channel between Montreal and Quebec appears to have been made about the year 1825. On the 13th of February, 1826, a petition from the merchants of Montreal

was read before the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, in part as follows:

"And then the said Petition was received and read; setting forth that the extraordinary efforts making in Great Britain and in the United States of America for the promotion of every improvement calculated to advance the objects of Commerce naturally excite in the minds of the inhabitants of this Province corresponding sentiments in regard to the means of advancing the trade and drawing forth the resources of the Canadas. That in consequence of the shallowness of the waters of the River St. Lawrence at Ile Platte and in some parts of Lake St. Peter vessels from sea are subjected to inconvenience and difficulties in their voyages between Quebec and Montreal.

been made by a person of character possessing the means and able to bring undoubted security for performance, to cut the necessary channel at the places required, viz., of the length of seven miles, of the breadth of twenty-five yards, and of the depth of sixteen feet, at low water, and to maintain the same in good order, during the space of three years from its completion, for the sum of thirty-six thousandi pounds currency. . . ."

Various surveys and investigations ensued, together with discussions and submission of alternative plans, and no actual work was begun until 1844, when, under the direction of the Board of Works, the dredging of a straight channel through Lake St. Peter was undertaken. This, however, was suspended three years later because many of the strongest advocates of the proposed improvements objected to this location, maintaining that the desired object could be attained sooner, more effectually and at less cost by deepening the natural channel.

In 1850, the Montreal Harbour Commission, which had been constituted in 1830, proposed a plan for the accomplishment of the work, believing that they could execute it successfully by methods more economical and expeditious than had been adopted by the Board of Works. This plan was adopted by the Government and an Act of Parliament (Act 13 & 14 Vic., cap. 97) was passed authorizing the Commissioners to borrow £30,000 for the purpose of proceeding with the work.

Improvement was steadily maintained thereafter, and a rapid increase of shipping attended the available improvements of the channel. In 1855, sixteen and a half feet depth at low water was attained, and two years later the channel was eighteen feet deep. The work of attaining a channel of twenty-five feet depth was accomplished in

1882, and in 1888, the last year in which the Montreal Harbour Commissioners had charge of the work, the low water depth was 271⁄2 feet. In 1888 the Government of Canada again assumed the work, recognizing that the ship channel was of national importance, and not merely for the benefit of the Port of Montreal, and by 1907 the ship channel had reached a depth of 30 feet.

Shipping of 100 Years Ago

An interesting record of the shipping activities at Montreal one hundred years ago and fifty years ago, respectively, has been preserved in an article written by Mr. T. S. Brown, and published in an 1873 issue of the "Canadian Antiquarian":

"I came to Montreal (says the writer) on the 28th day of May, 1818, in a batteau from Laprairie-no steamer had made the trip at the time—and landed on a sloping rough beach. The Spring fleet, mostly in port (a part may have arrived a few days later), consisted of, I think, half a dozen brigs of from 180 to 250 tons burthen, moored to the muddy beach. Below them were some 'Durham boats,' which we should now call small barges, navigators to Upper Canada, carrying a very large fore and aft sail and topsail. Wind then had to do what is now done by steam. There were no steamboats except those running to Quebec, clumsy things with bluff bows, built on the model of sailing vessels, rigged with bowsprit, high mast, and square sail, the deck flush and cabins all below. Their steam power was so small that they could not get fifty miles from Quebec unless they left with the tide, and oxen were frequently used in assisting them up the current below the city. There were no tow boats then. Vessels from sea had to make their way to Montreal by wind, which often took a month or more, the worst being the last mile, where I have seen oxen used on a tow line, as otherwise the light winds would be insufficient to enable them to overcome the force of the current.

"The 'ship' of the period was the 'Everetta,' from London, which arrived some days after. The summer goods were advertised about the middle of June, there being then no way of getting spring and summer fashions earlier, so that our ladies were always one year behind the age. This vessel brought the supplies to the 'North-West Company,' which then carried on the great Indian trade from Montreal by canoes up to Lake Superior and onwards. The ship remained moored at the foot of St. Sulpice Street

all summer, till the canoes returned with the year's catch of furs, and carried them to England."

Such was the Port of Montreal on the 28th of May, 1818.

"I visited it, says Mr. T. S. Brown, at the end of fifty-four years, on the 28th of May, 1872, and what did I see?

"A canal of the largest dimensions coming in at Windmill Point, and the old fields converted into basins, filled with steamers, schooners, and barges, one side fringed with manufactories, and the other by lofty warehouses and platforms filled with merchandise. The wharves and piers are covered and filled with merchandise of all descriptions, in bars, bundles, casks, cases, boxes and bales, a part being covered with temporary sheds. The quantity and weight are so immense that one wonders where it comes from and where it goes to. Instead of the half-dozen brigs of 1818, with an aggregate tonnage of twelve to fifteen hundred tons discharging slowly with skids on a rough beach, there lies one steamer that will measure more than the whole put together. In all there is in Port, stretching along the wharves and piers from Grey Nun Street to below the barracks, 21 ocean steamers, 22,612 tons; 20 ships, 17,710 tons; 22 barques, 12,409 tons; with 3 brigs and 4 brigantines; in all, 70 vessels, with an aggregate tonnage of 53,769 tons." The Modern Development

At the period referred to in the latter part of the foregoing, viz., 1872, the development was confined to what is now known as the "Central Section," but took the same form of piers projecting into the stream as at present. The structure was of wood, resting on piling. The ample supply of timber and the fresh water of the river made timber construction both cheap and permanent. The modern scheme of development, undertaken because of the growth in the size of vessels using the Port, and the increase in their number, of which the present harbour of Montreal is the result, was begun in 1909. It was coincident with what might be described as the start of a new era in the administration of the Port, as the number of Harbour Commissioners was reduced by the then Minister of Marine from eleven to three-the complaint with the larger Board being that it made too unwieldy an executive for efficient administration. That the experiment was a success has been aptly demonstrated since that time, and the Port of Montreal to-day bears the reputation of being one of, if not the most, efficiently operated ports in the world.

In the year 1898 improvements were begun in the Central Section of the harbor, which included three highlevel piers, about 1,000 feet long, called the Alexandra, King Edward and Jacques Cartier Piers, each 300 feet