get-and if it must stop why shall it stop? Can there exist any necessity so great as to justify such a stoppage and subject so many millions of people to such inconveniences, and such damage and loss, amounting, to say the least of it, in money, to a great many millions every year? It does not seem possible.

Let us examine the reason. It is not certainly in the amount of money invested in shipping upon the lakes. The highest estimate of all the shipping afloat is $50,000,000. There are at least $100,000,000 of railway property interested in the crossing of the Detroit River at Detroit, and there are probably $50,000,000 which will be interested in the passage at Trenton, including the western and southwestern connections, which will outlet there. If, therefore, the value of the property interested in this question alone is considered, there are at least three times as much in the railways as in the shipping.

Shall the interest of the $50,000,000 weigh down and obstruct the business and the revenues of the $150,000,000, and thereby depreciate and affect its value, or should the larger interest outweigh the lesser one, if either is to be affected by the proposed bridge? This does not seem to be right or fair.

If the interests of the public alone are to be the criterion, and if those who have money invested in vessels and railroads are to be laid aside in the consideration of public policy, how will the case then stand?

Let us take the passage of the river at Detroit, by means of a bridge, to test the question. Let us suppose such a bridge as we think necessary at the foot of Second street, built across the river with one or even two draws, by means of bridges resting on a pivot-pier, and having openings of 166 feet in the clear on each side of the pivot, and there being four such openings for the passage of vessels, and the bridge, consisting of spans of, say, 300 feet long, otherwise than at the draws, and the bridge being a low bridge, say from 10 to 20 feet above the water. Let us compare the evils which the millions of producers in the West will suffer by reason of such a bridge, and those which they now suffer and must continue to suffer by the want of it.

First. There will be no perceptible inconvenience to any and all vessels going up stream, and no increase of expense of navigation in that direction. The almost universal mode of passing the Straits of Detroit, and so elsewhere, also, is by tugs taking a line of four or five, or less number, of vessels in a line, and drawing them up or down the river. They go always up in a straight line, and could easily go through a passage 66 feet wide, instead of 166 feet wide. The only contingency in which there could possibly be any inconvenience would be when up and down tugs might meet, and desire to pass the same opening at the same time with their vessels in tow. In stormy weather there might possibly be some difficulty in both passing the same opening. There would be none in any other weather. But there will be an opening on each side the pivot-pier of 116 feet, and they need never meet in the same opening.

Tugs, both ways, should pass through the right opening, and they could never meet. And the two openings of a single-draw bridge upon a pivot-span would be ample for the passage of all the boats and vessels engaged in the navigation of the lakes in the usual course of business. Going up, therefore, there can be no difficulty, or trouble, or inconvenience.

It is contended that there would be some going down with a line of tugs. Let us examine this question and see how much difficulty there would be:

First. There would be none when the draw was open. We assume that whatever the weather when a tug is manageable, and navigation can go on, a tug (and they are always strong and powerful, passing through the water by the power of steam) will pass enough faster than the current to keep the vessels in line. This is always the case, and with a man at the helm of each vessel and a powerful tug pulling, it would be totally impossible to get out of line, except purposely, even going down. With the draws open, therefore, perpetually there could be no difficulty. In pleasant and ordinary weather, and with the open draw, there would be no possibility of difficulty, of course. In going up, the tug can always go fast or slow on approaching the draw, as it pleases, and should a train be passing it would only have to slacken speed for a moment or two till the train had passed and the draw again opened. In going down, if a tug approached when a train was passing, it could not stop, of course; and if so near that it could not continue its course, it might be compelled to round to and start downward again. This is the whole extent of the inconvenience there could be, and it remains to consider how important it will be. It is the most common thing for tugs with their tows to round to, and tie up to the shore or wharf. They do it for wood. They do it to go and help other vessels. They do it to obtain supplies. It is the work of only a few minutes at most. It is not expensive, but might involve a loss of time, say from fifteen to twenty minutes at the outside.

How often would this occur with a bridge, and how much would navigation suffer by it? And in discussing this question we will adopt the extreme statements of the vessel-owners, that the passage of vessels averages one every six minutes during navigation. This includes tugs and craft, big and little, of all kinds.

In the first place, we will state a fact which bears upon the case somewhat. All the trains of the Chicago and Saint Louis Railroad and of the Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne

Railroad run over a single-track bridge over the Chicago River, where there are an immense number of vessels passing up and down with tugs. Those roads both do an immense business, and a very great number of trains pass across the bridge. In 1868, when there was not probably half the business there now is upon those roads, between March and December the draw was opened for the passage of vessels 16,984 times, and 43,735 vessels of all craft passed through. This was done without serious inconvenience to either the roads or vessels. The time was eight months, and calling each month thirty days, there were 345,600 minutes in the time, and there was a vessel passed through during that whole period in every seven to eight minutes. With the increase of navigation this number is doubtless largely increased, and it is possible that there is one every five minutes, and yet there is no trouble for the railway or nayigation which materially affects either. Now, as has been stated, a tug generally takes in tow five vessels, and averaging from three to five, say on an average four, and including the tug, there are five vessels generally. This reduces the number of passages at once to one in a half an hour, and we venture to state they will not average that during the year. Now, during the season when the navigation is fully open the draw would be kept open for the passage of vessels, and there could be no delay except during the actual passage of trains, and we estimate that for the present the draw would be closed thirty times a day, and for a period each time of about ten minutes, in all the twenty-four hours, say five hours out of the twenty-four. This will be at regular stated periods of the day, and will come to be understood, and the result will be really no inconvenience, because tugs will know all the time when to approach the bridge, and they will have nineteen hours out of the twenty-four to pass and repass, and they will pass, on an average, only once in half an hour in any event. It is not at all probable that there would be any difficulty or real substantial inconvenience to any interest more than there is at Chicago, where there is quite as much passing and repassing of vessels through many draw-bridges as there can be here. Indeed the passages will be, and are, more frequent there, because tugs rarely take more than one or two vessels there at a time. Here they will take from three to five, as above stated. There will not be, it is safe to say, one out of fifty tows which will be required to round to at all, or slack up in a direct course. If there be so many as that, that one in fifty might possibly be delayed a half an hour at the outside, and then would pass along. This is really the extent of the injury to navigation, and the whole extent; and it is safe to say that if there were twenty such bridges across the river between Lakes Huron and Erie, the injury to the agricultural community of the great West, whose interests are principally invoked, would not be half or a quarter as great as the interruption of ralway passage by ice for a single month in any one winter would occasion. The injury caused by the bridges would be imperceptible upon the business and upon the value of the productions of the country. The stoppage of the trains for a single winter, and sometimes even for two or three weeks, is, as has been shown, immense. And when we consider the immensity of the benefit to all the West of uninterrupted and constant trains running upon double-track roads all the year round, and especially in winter, when all other means of transit are closed, and that the productions of the West can only move by rail, and the effect upon business and trade, and upon the comfort of every industrious farmer of the West, and every merchant and mechanic, resulting from uninterrupted and constant movement of traffic, and consequent circulation of money in the West, the argument is overwhelming, and cannot be resisted, in favor of a bridge or bridges wherever necessary.

Let it be borne in mind, also, that there is no change in the current of the Detroit River-there are no floods there. The flow of the current is gentle and uniform, and always alike. There is no river in the world where, from those causes, a bridge would be so little interruption to navigation. There are no eddies or side-currents to take a vessel out of its course and drive it against a pier. Everything favors the easy and perfectly-safe passage of vessels of all kinds through a draw.

This argument has all been based upon a single draw with two spans, which are amply sufficient for navigation. But at Detroit we propose two, both equally convenient for navigation, and one near the Detroit side, while the other should be in the thread of the stream, or mid-channel. The one near the Detroit side would, besides admitting the free passage of vessels engaged in the long navigation of the lakes, admit the free passage up and down of vessels moving locally in the port of Detroit.

Now, for a moment, set the disadvantages to navigation by a bridge against the disadvantage to the railway by being without one. The whole sum of disadvantage to navigation is, that possibly, in the course of the year, some tows going down may be compelled to round to and be delayed in their passage by that cause possibly half an hour each. This might or might not occur, and would certainly occur rarely, and the effect on the general business of the country would be inconceivably small, and not in the slightest degree perceptible. Last winter the trains were obstructed by ice in the Detroit River about two months, and the business from the West was totally stopped in consequence about three months. The cars of the railroad companies to the number of 3,000 were accumulated on the borders of the river and on the side-tracks of the railroad waiting passage. We estimate that this obstruction cost the Michigan Central

and Great Western Roads, in business, about a million dollars. The obstruction probably obstructed the passage of property to the amount of from twenty to fifty times that for the period of three months which it took to clear roads, get cars back, and get business moving again freely. The loss in damages, delays, costs, and loss of interest was immense, and the large amount of money represented by that amount of property was kept out of circulation in the West during that time; and it is safe to say that the price of every bushel of grain in the whole West, and the amount of every man's business, and the comfort of every household there was affected by it, while the railroads, whose losses were minute when compared with the effect upon the country in general, were many hundred times greater than would be all the damage to navigation in twenty years occasioned by any number of bridges ever likely to be built between Lakes Erie and Huron. These results, so far as the railroads and community are concerned, are from actual experience. All the possible inconvenience to navigation which can result is perfectly apparent. Yet, in these circumstances, the vessel-owner will, if he can, continue to subject the railroad companies and the ten millions of people in the Northwest to these great losses, to avoid the almost infinitesimal inconvenience to which they may possibly become subject if a bridge is built. It cannot be necessary to argue this question further. Nothing which can be said will add to the strength of the case beyond that given it by a simple statement of facts and resulting consequences.

As to the place where the bridge should be built, we have to say that at Detroit it should be at the foot of Second street, and directly across the river, at right angles with the current. If not there, it must be two or three miles above or below the city. Either would occasion great inconvenience. Trains from Detroit east would be compelled to run back into the country some miles to start, and trains to and from the West and East would have to break up outside the city, and only the part destined for Detroit would come into it. In both passenger and freight business the inconvenience and additional expense would be very great. If the bridge were at the foot of Second street the trains would only stop at Detroit, between New York and the West, to take on and let off passengers, and their passage would be continuous along the same track, which would be an immense advantage both in passenger and freight business. The plan hereto appended will show what we desire for the Central and other roads centering at Detroit. The grade should rise gently to the border of the river, so as to place the bridge, if possible, say twenty feet above the river.

With regard to the tunnel, we have to say that it was given up, because there was no reasonable hope that it could be built in any tolerably short period of time, if by possibility it could be at all. The chief engineer, Mr. Chesborough, determined not to commence the main tunnel till the small tunnel built for drainage and exploration was through. That was estimated to cost $70,000, and the time to complete it six months. The time which had been spent upon it was near two years, and the money expended, $135,000. There remained about 1,700 feet to go with the work, and the utmost per day which had been accomplished for some weeks was one foot, and the work was becoming more and more difficult. There was no way by which it could be hastened. Mr. Chesborough stated that it might take six years to accomplish it. If the work could be carried through at all, probably the main tunnel could not have been completed short of ten years. Mr. Chesborough's estimate, last made, for the cost of the small tunnel was $200,000, instead of $70,000, the original estimate. The original estimate for the main tunnel was $2,600,000, but, judging from the past, it would probably cost three or more times that. No well-based estimate can be made of the cost of the work about which there are so many contingencies a hundred feet below the surface, and under such a river as the Detroit.

The data relative to transportation of freight by ferry-boats, and costs, &c., and amount of freight, will be furnished by the Great Western Company. The amount of freight carried under present disadvantages is no criterion of the amount which will be carried with a double-track bridge, over which trains can pass freely at all times during the winter. Then it will be immense, and it will be safe to say that with the means of doing the business now being prepared by means of four great roads, of which three are being double-tracked and two of which are north and two south of Lake Erie, there can be and will be no accumulation of grain in the lake cities. It will move all winter. There will be no stagnation of business during the winter months. The great roads will be always open. Freights will move all the time. The business of the country will continue through the year round. There will be little cost of storage, little delay or loss of interest. Money will continue to circulate in the agricultural country during all the year. The market for the farmer will be always open, and he will be able to command money for his productions in winter as well as summer. Life, business, and energy will be as apparent, and the internal commerce of the country will move as rapidly in midwinter as at any other season of the year.

In closing we will remark that, by reason of the policy of Government, the agricultural community are taxed to support almost every other industry. There is a protective tariff, which fosters almost every species of industry except the cultivation of the soil, and at the expense of him who cultivates it, and, while that is done, every inducement is held out to the emigration of the world to come to this country and help swell

the enormous volume of the productions of the soil, until the overproduction is such that they will hardly bear transportation to market. Homestead laws are passed, free lands are given, to induce emigration and competition in the business of farming. While all other industries are protected at the expense of the large farming population of the country, the value of their productions is depressed by an equal, and perhaps even stronger, stimulus in the shape of homesteads, to tempt him to come here and multiply the productions of the soil. In a double manner is the production of his industry affected. The only possible protection or favor he can receive at the hands of Government is to remove the obstacles in the way to market, and, if possible, procure for him cheap, and, what is of equal and perhaps more importance, by ever-open and adequate roads, to the great markets of the world. That the roads that we represent may he made such, and put in the best position to accomplish these ends, it is that we ask to be permitted to bridge the Detroit River, and keep forever, and at all seasons of the year, one of the old and great avenues over and through which can best pass as large a share of the immense volume of western productions as can be transported by any one line of railroad.

As to the site of the bridge, we have to say that, in the judgment of the railroad companies, it should cross the river at the foot of Second street and run across at right angles with the current. The river is so wide and so spacious, and so uniformly deep, that in either portion of the river in front of the city, above or below a bridge so located, there is ample room, probably, for all the vessels upon all the lakes at any one time. All boats can round to above or below. All vessels will be able to approach any wharf above or below, and with no material inconvenience. So far as any interest connected with navigation is concerned, the precise location is not important. So far as the railroads are interested, and the city of Detroit, the location on this site is of very great moment.

First. With regard to the railroads, I have to say that that is the only site within the city where the passage can be made, and if it be not made there, it must be far above, at Belle Isle, or below, near the fort. Either of these would involve large additional cost and subject the railroads to very great inconvenience. All the roads terminating at Detroit must run their business some miles out of the way to reach the bridge, except the Michigan Central, with its through business. The business of the city of Detroit to and from the east, both travel and passengers, would be compelled to run back on one or the other roads three miles or more to reach the track leading to the bridge, whether it should be above or below the city. This would place the roads east from Detroit and the business of that city to such a disadvantage as to compel the maintenance of ferries in the summer to obviate it, and there would be involved the double expense of both ferry and bridge. This would be inevitable, and the bridge would be reduced mainly to a winter passage-way.

The effect upon Detroit itself would be disastrous. If the bridge were used for the through business, the trains for that business would never pass through the city, but some miles away from it, and the roads to the city would become switches or side-tracks from the great through route, extending into the city for such business as was purely local. All the business to and from the city east, in the winter, as has been said, would be compelled to reach these side-tracks from three to five miles out, increasing the distance between it and the seaboard from six to ten miles, and to avoid which in the summer ferries would be kept up. Detroit would cease to be upon one of the great thoroughfares of the country, and would be placed, aside from that, at a very great disadvantage. That this would be the case we need not argue at any length. Every man and every citizen will realize it at once from the simple statement of the case.

All advantages are in favor of the location at the foot of Second street. That location will disturb no existing values in property. The business of the country will continue to approach the city in the same manner and at the same places as heretofore. The trains, both through and local, will not be disturbed or broken up outside, a part to run to the bridge, and a part to run into the city. The track of the great railroad route through the city from Chicago to New York, and vice versa, would be continuous. Freight and passenger trains either way, for through business, would continue through, without being compelled to back or run back to get upon another track. The travel and business to and from Detroit would take the through train as it passed along. It might also, in the winter, when the interest of navigation did not require its draws to be kept open, and when the passage of the river at all times is difficult and unpleasant, and much of the time impossible, be used as a highway for travel and business of all kinds, and would in that aspect be valuable to the public. Every argument from convenience, necessity, and the public interest, in every form, points to that locality as the site of the bridge, and fixes it there so firmly that any other seems impossible. Such are the reasons respectfully submitted to show why there should be built a railroad-bridge across the river to Detroit, and also why it should be located at the foot of Second street, and for which we request respectful consideration.

With the utmost respect,

JAMES F. JOY,

President of the Michigan Central Railroad Company.

MEMORIAL TO CONGRESS.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

We, the undersigned, citizens of the several States named below, would most respectfully present this memorial:

During the winter months, for years past, there has been a pressing want of increased transportation facilities from the West to the seaboard. The railroad companies have been unable to receive and transport all the property offered them, and their inability to meet the demands upon them for transportation has induced them to exact largely increased rates of freight, with results alike damaging and disastrous to the agricultural, manufacturing, and business interests of the entire country. The immense elevators and grain warehouses of Chicago have been (in midwinter) filled to overflowing, compelling them partially to suspend business, so that the railroads bringing grain from the West to Chicago have been unable to unload their cars, and consequently they have been obliged to refuse transportation to their patrons.

The warehouses in the country becoming full, farmers have, in many instances, been unable to find a market for their grain. This winter-freight embargo has also prevented the western pork-packers and provision-dealers from realizing on millions of dollars' worth of property wanted in European markets. The impossibility of shipping said property when ready for market has resulted in severe stringency in money matters, deranging and damaging business and causing financial embarrassment. We would, also, respectfully remind your honorable bodies of the rapid increase of population, and of the agricultural growth and industrial pursuits of the vast territory (more than 600,000 square miles) between Lakes Michigan and Superior and the western boundary-line of Nebraska, which, to a very great extent, is tributary to Chicago in all business matters, and through which city the major portion of the surplus products of that section of the country must pass during the season of suspended navigation of the lakes and rivers to reach the great markets of the Atlantic States and Europe. We have observed with pleasure the several propositions for enlarged and additional water facilities between the East and West to mutually benefit the producers and the consumers of our produce. But we are convinced that water-routes alone, however improved and enlarged, will not fully answer the purpose desired, especially in this northern latitude, where lake, river, and canal navigation is suspended for more than one-third of the year, which turns the entire transit business on to the present railroad-lines, greatly overtaxing their rolling-stock, at winter rates of freight, the effect of which, as has been shown, is to check grain-shipments to the East, thereby filling the large warehouses in Lake Michigan ports at long-storage rates, with grain at low prices. The farmers who can hold their corn-crop until the next spring can store it at home for better rates at the opening of navigation; but those who cannot do so must often sacrifice their best interest to meet current expenses and payments, while, at the same time, the consumer at the East is obliged to pay prices out of proportion with those received by the producer, because the present facilities for transporting property are inadequate to move all that is pressing forward, and likewise insufficient to move the quantity demanded by the wants of the East.

What we need, and must have, as it appears to us, to afford proper relief to all interests, is a double-track railroad between Chicago and New York, to be worked exclusively in the tonnage business, at slow speed and at cheap rates. This road, worked at about seven miles to the hour, would carry from Chicago to New York, every year, a tonnage equal to four hundred and fifty million bushels of wheat, and return as many tons to Chicago. In case Congress is not prepared to order the construction of such a highway as a national public work, we humbly pray your honorable bodies to grant a charter for the construction of such road, with judicious and proper restrictions as to capital stock, toll-rates, speed of trains, and impartiality in the reception and transportation of freight.

In the judgment of your petitioners, said charter should require the company (to whom it may be granted) to receive and transport over its line, with reasonable dispatch and at prescribed maximum and uniform rates of toll, all cars (whether loaded or empty) corresponding in gauge and construction with its own, or of a certain specified standard of construction. The charter, also, to require of the company complete and full responsibility in the care and delivery of all property which it receives. The charter, also, to require the company to make annual reports to the Secretary of the Interior of all its operations, including detailed statements of its capital stock paid in, its receipts and expenditures, and such other information as may be required by the said Secretary of the Interior; and that the Government, by order of the said Secretary, or by vote of Congress, to have at any time the right to investigate all the affairs of said company, for the purpose of verifying said reports, or for other purposes.

In the establishment of rates of toll for transportation, the company should be allowed to exact only so much as will, in the judgment of its managers, approved by the Secretary of the Interior, produce a net revenue of not exceeding 12 per cent. per