40

APPENDIX G-— Continued.

authority of this act which shall at any time substantially or materiallyobstruct the free navigation of said river; and if any bridge erected under suchauthority shall, in the opinion of the Secretary of War, obstruct such naviga-tion, he is hereby authorized to cause such change or alteration of said bridgeto be made as will effectually obviate such obstructions, and all such alterationsshall be made and all such obstructions be removed at the expense of theowner or owners of said bridge. And in case of any litigation arising from anyobstruction or alleged obstruction to the free navigation of said river, caused oralleged to be caused by said bridge, the case may be brought in the circuitcourt of the United States in which any portion of said obstruction or bridgemay be located: Provided further, That nothing in this act shall be so con-strued as to repeal or modify any of the provisions of law now existing in refer-ence to the protection of the navigation of rivers, or to exempt this bridge fromthe operations of the same.”

Had the Kansas City & Memphis Railway & Bridge Co. built its bridgeunder this charter, the longest span which it would be required to build wouldhave been fifty feet shorter than the shortest span in the bridge it is nowbuilding, and the head room of the bridge would have been ten feet less thanthe height now required.

REPORT OF BOARD OF ENGINEERS UPON GENERAL

BRIDGE LAW.

A bill was introduced in the Fiftieth Congress known as “ Senate Bill 275,”to authorize the construction of bridges across the Missouri between its mouthand the mouth of the Dakota or James River, and across the Mississippi Riverbetween St. Paul, Minn., and Natchez, Miss., and across the Illinois Riverbetween its mouth and La Salle, Ill. This bill was referred to a Board ofEngineers who made their report on February 23d, 1888. This report isprinted, being Senate Executive Document No. 120, 50th Congress, 1st Session.It is also printed in full in the Report of the Chief of Engineers, U. S. A.,for 1888.

In this report (page 9) they say :

“The Board feel well assured that, by the use of well known appliances,the upper portions of steamboat chimneys can be lowered to the level of thepilot houses, and as the clear head room they have recommended will pass thepilothouses of the largest boats on the river, they consider that the slightdelay which may accompany this operation of lowering the chimneys will befar less onerous to navigation than the great danger and difficulty which mustof necessity attend an attempt to pass through a narrow draw opening at highstages of water.”

In other words, the Board recognized the fact that smoke stacks can be soeasily lowered that it is unwise to insist on bridges being built so as to give theheight necessary for boats to pass without lowering their smoke stacks.

In the same report three lists of boats are given (pages 36, 40 and 41) inwhich the heights of pilot houses and of smoke stacks are noted.

The first is a list of Ohio River coal tow boats. In this list the greatestheight of pilot house is 55 feet, the greatest height of chimney 88 feet. Theseboats pass through bridges 53 feet above high water, and though complaintshave been made of the length of spans, no complaints are made of the heightabove water.

The second list is a list of the St. Louis and New Orleans Anchor Lineboats, the largest passenger packets now running on the Mississippi River.The highest pilot house is 65 feet and the highest smoke stack 92 feet. As amatter of fact the height of the pilot house would be reduced to 60 feet by theremoval of unnecessary ornamentation, and the smoke stacks are only four feethigher than the smoke stacks of boats on the Ohio River which pass under53 feet bridges.

The third list is a list of the tow boats of the St. Louis & MississippiYalley Transportation Co., the highest pilot house being 52 feet and thehighest smoke stack 75 feet. These boats are among the most powerful boatswhich ever ran on the Mississippi River.

The Board of Engineers returned the proposed General Bridge Law withcertain amendments, Section 18 of the bill as recommended by this Boardreading as follows :

“ Sec. 18. That all bridges authorized by this act over the MississippiRiver between the mouth of the Ohio River and Natchez, Mississippi, shall behigh bridges with unbroken and continuous spans, having at least one channelspan of not less than six hundred and fifty feet clear channel way, all otherspans over the water-way to have a clear channel way of not less than fivehundred feet; and all said spans shall have a clear head room of not less thanseventy feet above high water mark.”

It appears to have been the conclusion of this Board that a height of fivefeet more than the height of the highest pilot house of which they had anyrecord was ample for any portion of the Mississippi River. The Report ofthis Board of Engineers was based on a height of pilot house measured to thetop of ornamentation instead of to the top without ornament, which is thecorrect measurement. This discrepancy probably occurred from the fact thatthe Board of Engineers, having a limited time at their command, took theheights as .given by the steamboat owners instead of having them speciallymeasured, and the character of the upper five or six feet was thus overlooked.

OBSERVATION OF HEIGHTS OF STEAMBOATS.

"With the view of obtaining the most recent information, a special agentwas sent down the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans and returnwith instructions to examine every boat on the river and report upon her prin-cipal dimensions. This trip was made in November and December, 1889.

While the report of this special agent only covers those boats which werein actual service at the time of liis trip, it practically includes every boat nowrunning on the Mississippi River except the Ohio River boats, all of which passunder bridges only 53 feet above high water.

A list of the boats measured by this agent with their principal dimensionsis given in the Appendix, the boats being arranged in the order of the heightof their pilot houses without including ornaments.

The pilot houses of the western river boats as now built are surmountedby a wooden ornament of absolutely no use, several feet higher than the flatroof of the pilot house. The smoke stacks are also ornamented on top, theornamentation being often in the form of an open work resembling the feath-ered head dress of an Indian. In some instances this ornamentation is of solidform, and may be considered an extension of the smoke stack; generally it isonly ornamental.

The results of this agent’s examinations show that there are only about sixsteamboats on the Mississippi River whose pilot houses including ornamen-tation are more than 60 feet high, and that there is not a single boat on whichthe pilot house without ornamentation is 60 feet high, while there are only sixboats in which the height of pilot houses without ornamentation is more than55 feet.

COMPARISON WITH REQUIREMENTS ON TRIBUTARY RIVERS.

The laws under which the two bridges at St. Louis have been built requirea head room of 50 feet in the clear above high water, which high water hasbeen interpreted as the height of the St. Louis City Directrix, with an allow-ance in the case of the new Merchants’ Bridge for the slope of the river. TheSt. Louis City Directrix is 7.6 feet below the extreme high water of 1844, thusmaking the actual requirement above extreme high water 42.4 feet.

The bridges on the lower Ohio River were built under the provisions of anAct supplementary to an act approved December seventeenth, eighteen hundredand seventy-two, entitled “An Act to authorize the construction of bridgesacross the Ohio River and to prescribe the dimensions of the same. Approved,February fourteenth, 1883.” The closing part of Section 2 of this Act reads asfollows:

“ Provided further, That in lieu of the high draw prescribed above, bridgesover the Ohio River below the Covington and Cincinnati Suspension Bridgemay be built as continuous bridges with a clear height of fifty-three feet abovelocal highest water, measured to the lowest part of the channel span.”

The bridge across the Ohio River at Cairo within four miles of the mouthof the Ohio River, under which every boat passing from the Ohio River to theMississippi must go, is built in accordance with this law. It .is 53 feet abovehigh water, and the range between high and low water at the site of the bridgeas determined by the Chief of Engineers is 52.2 feet, making the total heightof the bridge 105.2 feet above low water.

At Memphis the range between low and high water is 36 feet, and therequirement of 75 feet head room is not only 22 feet more than is required atCairo above high water, but corresponds to 5.8 feet more than is required atCairo above low water.