The _Review of Reviews_ in a recent article on the traffic of the Great
Lakes, proves the extraordinary importance of this traffic and of
Buffalo’s location from a commercial standpoint. It must always be borne
in mind that the great bulk of the lake traffic is tributary to Buffalo.
The article referred to is as follows:
“Few persons who have not made a personal study of the matter
realize the magnitude of the traffic of the Great Lakes. There
were over 1,100 more vessels passing through the canal into
Duluth, Minnesota, in 1891, than passed through the Suez Canal
the year previous. Through the “Soo” Canal at the outlet of Lake
Superior there were more than three times as many vessels and
nearly a million and three-quarters tons more freight in 1890
than through the Suez Canal during the same year. There is not
the same absolute record of vessels passing through the Detroit
River as is obtainable for the two points previously mentioned.
But an estimate made by Hon. George H. Ely, of Cleveland, shows
that in 1889 there were more than 36,000,000 tons of freight
carried through the Detroit River. This sum seems large when it
is stated by itself, but the real magnitude will perhaps be
better appreciated when it is known that this is 10,000,000 tons
in excess of the tonnage at all the seaports of the United
States for the same year, and 3,000,000 tons in excess of the
total arrivals and clearances, both coastwise and foreign, of
Liverpool and London combined. The arrivals and clearances of
vessels at Chicago for 1890 numbered 21,541, while the
corresponding aggregate for New York was but 15,283. The entries
and clearances for the entire seaboard of the United States in
that year were 37,756, while for the United States ports on the
Great Lakes the arrivals and clearances numbered 88,280. The
traffic of the Great Lakes in 1891 was 27 per cent of the total
traffic of all the railways of the United States for the same
year, and if the tonnage carried on the lakes had been carried
instead by rail, at the average price per ton per mile, it would
have cost, in round numbers, $150,000,000 more than was actually
paid for its transportation by water.”