Tonnage and poundage

“ But, if I am mistaken in these views, and it should experience any reduction, the increase in our coasting tonnage, resulting from the greater activity of domestic exchanges, will more than compensate the injury. Although our navigation partakes in the general distress of the country, it is less depressed than any other of our great interests. The foreign tonnage has been gradually, though slowly, increasing, since 1818. And our coasting tonnage, since 1816, has increased upwards of one hundred thousand tons. ”

“ Registered tonnage is all the enclosed cargo spaces and it is on this tonnage that ships pay all claims, such as wharfage, pilotage, light and canal dues. But when describing the tonnage on her naval fleet, England measures displacement, that is, in terms the cubic feet of water the ship would displace. ”

“ A country can, or will, pay only so much for its war fleet. That amount of money means so much aggregate tonnage. How shall that tonnage be allotted? And, especially, how shall the total tonnage invested in armored ships be divided? Will you have a few very big ships, or more numerous medium ships? Where will you strike your mean between numbers and individual size? ”

“ In burden they varied from thirty or forty to one hundred tons, [Footnote: This was the maximum tonnage for which the Navy Board paid, but when trade was slack larger vessels could be had, and were as a matter of fact frequently employed, at the nominal tonnage rate.] the smaller craft hugging the coast and dropping in from port to port, the larger cruising far beyond shore limits. For deep-sea or trade-route cruising the smaller craft were of little use. No ship of force would bring-to for them. ”

“ It is not difficult to understand that a breakdown of that source of supply would mean starvation and disaster. Our dependence on the coasting vessels is not so apparent. The vital needs served by them are, in part, obscured. We are, perhaps, satisfied that alternative channels exist for passage of the tonnage they transport: road and rail are open for inland carriage. ”

“ Our tonnage exceeds that of any European nation, except Great Britain and Holland; and if we must have a navy to protect our commerce, it must bear some proportion to the extent of our coast, to the amount of our tonnage, and to the navies of the European nations. ”

“ If the supply be inadequate, the draught of the boats plying on the canal may have to be reduced in a dry season, and the consequent decrease in the size of their cargoes will both lessen the carrying capacity of the canal and increase the working expenses in relation to the tonnage handled. ”

“ Taking one-tenth as representing the one voyage and return in the year of the more distant traffic, and one and a half outward sailings for the other nine tenths of tonnage, we arrive at the approximative fact, that the foreign trade does in reality employ no more (repeated voyages allowed for as before stated) than the aggregate tonnage of 1,258,000, instead of the 1,797,000 gross tonnage as apparent. ”

“ These difficulties on land and water are being rapidly overcome: by adding to the means of transportation; by increasing the efficiency of the transport facilities already existing; by lightening the tonnage to be shipped from the States by buying everything that is procurable in Europe. In the early months much of the available Atlantic tonnage was occupied with carrying the materials of construction: rails, engines, concrete, lumber, and all the thousand and one things that go to the housing of armies. This accounts for America's delay in starting fighting. ”

“ Each company knew that the addition of new steamers to its fleet would only pay if part of a carefully considered plan, and if, in course of time, such an increase of tonnage would give it a claim to an increase of the percentage of traffic allotted to its services. ”

“ Yet the German and Austrian raiders, mines, and submarines sank fifteen million tons of shipping, which is not far short of a third of all the merchant tonnage in the world; and the submarines sank more than the mines and raiders sank together. (Ships are measured by finding out how many cubic feet of space they contain and counting so many feet to the ton. Thus you get a much better idea of how much shipping a country has by counting in tons rather than by the number of ships; for twenty-five ships of one thousand tons each have only half as much sea-power as one ship of fifty thousand tons.) ”

“ The four desiderata of a modern cargo-boat are that she should have a low registered tonnage in comparison with her capacity, ample water-ballast tanks, large hatchways, and holds as free from obstruction as possible. Three or four methods are practised by builders for attaining these objects, and every builder has made modifications of them as time has shown the necessity of the changes to meet varying trade conditions. ”

“ Thus the capital embarked in the one vessel is not so great in proportion to the tonnage space for cargo as the capital embarked in several smaller vessels carrying the same amount; while the current expenses are greatly less, and the speed, and economy of time by that speed and by avoiding tedious stoppages, greatly in favour of the large one. Practical men concur with me, not merely in the practicability of constructing the vessel, but in the great advantage as regards speed, seaworthiness, and safety resulting merely from the increased size ”

“ Displacement tonnage is that which is invariably used in respect of warships, and is the actual weight of water displaced by the vessel whose tonnage is being dealt with. Men-of-War are designed to carry all their weights, including coal, guns, ammunition, stores and water in tanks and in boilers, at a certain draught, and the tonnage attributed to them is the weight of water which at that designed draught they actually displace. ”

“ Figures do not prove anything. If the Erie Canal and the Mississippi River traffic had increased, doubled, trebled, or quadrupled in the past years, instead of actually dwindling by tonnage figures, it would prove nothing as against the tremendous tonnage hauled by the trunk line railroads. ”

“ Art. XXIII. The actual displacement of warships shall be determined from their official displacement scale and curves, and shall be expressed in tons of 2,240 pounds. Should the displacement scale and curves of a warship show or state the vessel's displacement tonnage in metric tons of 2,204.62 pounds, the tonnage so expressed shall be multiplied by 0.9842 for the purpose of converting the tonnage into tons of 2,240 pounds. ”

“ This is easily explained; the tonnage increases as the cubes of their dimensions, while the resistance increases about as their squares; so that a vessel of double the tonnage of another, capable of containing an engine of twice the power, does not really meet with double the resistance. Speed therefore will be greater with the large vessel, or the proportionate power of the engine and consumption of fuel may be reduced. ”

“ When space must be given to machinery, boilers, and bunkers, the tonnage must be ample to give the required accommodation. The cost of building and manning, and the horse-power of the engines, do not increase in proportion to the increase of size. The building of steamers for the work of tramps has now been brought down to 7l. per ton. I would strongly urge yacht-owners contemplating ocean cruising to build vessels of not less than 600 tons. ”

“ The tonnage required for bulky articles will be generally one third more than their actual weight; but the tonnage of ordnance, shells, shot, &c. will be equal to their weight. If vessels be paid according to the tonnage they carry, the masters will of course stow away as much as the ships will hold; but if, by the voyage, they will be averse to loading their ships too much; a naval officer should therefore always attend to see that the ships are properly stowed. ”

“ As sailing ships cannot make use of the canal, it is quite evident that there must be a use of sailing tonnage to the extent of over two millions of tons a year in the trade between the United Kingdom and her Indian and Australasian possessions. ”

“ The cars from which we load coal vary in the number of tons they carry, just as some of the ore pockets from which we load contain more ore than others. We save all trouble by loading until the keel is so many feet below the surface of the water, the tonnage carried varying in accordance with the depth of water over certain bars on our course and at the canal. On this trip we are only loaded to seventeen feet four inches. ”

“ There is considerable competition, which, of course, has the effect of reducing the rate of freight. The lowest apparent tender, however, is not always accepted, as it occasionally happens, that, from peculiarity of construction, a vessel of less registered tonnage will afford greater accommodation, and, consequently, convey a greater number of prisoners than one of larger burden. ”

“ Now comes the tonnage of that boat. Tonnage of a boat means the amount of displacement; displacement means the amount of water a vessel can shove in a day. The tonnage of man is estimated by the amount of whiskey he can displace in a day.
Robert Fulton named the ‘Clermont’ in honor of his bride, that is, Clermont was the name of the county-seat. ”

“ Where the tonnage on one level is not sufficient to warrant other than men or animals, it sometimes pays (if the dip is steep enough) to dump everything through winzes from one to two levels to a main road below where mechanical equipment can be advantageously provided. The cost of shaft-winding the extra depth is inconsiderable compared to other factors, for the extra vertical distance of haulage can be done at a cost of one or two cents per ton mile. ”

“ The magnitude of our shipbuilding industry at the middle of the nineteenth century is indicated by the fact that during the decade beginning with 1850 the tonnage built in our yards equaled 3,988,372 tons, an annual average of nearly 400,000 tons. ”

“ The tonnage for material for necessary construction for the supply of an army of three and perhaps four million men would require a mammoth program of shipbuilding at home, and miles of dock construction in France, with a corresponding large project for additional railways and for storage depots. ”

“ In the above exemption is particularly comprised the imposition of one hundred sols per ton, etc., with the exception of the coasting trade to French vessels between their own ports, which the Americans are allowed to balance with a similar tonnage on French vessels coasting in the American ports. And even this coasting-trade tonnage is not to continue longer than the most favored nations pay it. ”

“ At all events the tendency toward higher grade tonnage has been notable, especially since 1900. Many western roads and even the trunk lines, formerly dependent in a great measure upon the movement of crops, are now affected only indirectly in this regard, by reason of their influence upon general business. ”

“ A duty of tonnage within the meaning of the constitution is a charge upon a vessel, according to its tonnage, as an instrument of commerce, for entering or leaving a port, or navigating the public waters of the country ”

“ It is a most striking fact that, of all the tonnage entering our own British ports between 1892 and 1902, the foreign tonnage shows an absolute increase much greater than ours. The total of all the tonnage entering British ports in 1892 was 75,000,000, and in 1902 it was 99,000,000, or an increase of 24,000,000. Out of that increase, which has nothing to do with percentages, the British have only ten and a half millions of tons, and the foreigners thirteen and a half. ”

“ The fleets embraced in it are not necessarily all those whose tonnage reaches above the lower limit shown. There are now a number of lines whose total exceeds 100,000 tons which are not shown in the list. Amongst them may be cited the Hamburg- Pacific Line, the German line to Australia, the Union Company of New Zealand—which contains many small vessels, the Forende Company of Copenhagen and the Anglo-American Oil Company. The table shows how whilst the principal lines are largely increasing their fleets, one or two companies are falling back in their gross amount of tonnage. ”

“ As the vessels are increased in size it takes less horse power per ton to drive them at a given speed, and this has tended to augment the tonnage of the great liners so that the dimensions of the Great Eastern are now exceeded by nearly a dozen vessels, built and building. ”

“ Her decks, encumbered with harbour gear and tackle, are given over to the rude hands of the longshoreman; a lumber yard for harbour refuse, a dumping ground for the ashes of the bustling dock tugs. On the hatch covers of her empty holds planks and stages are thrown aside, left as when the last of the cargo was dragged from her; hoist ropes, frayed and chafed to feather edges, swing from the yardarms; broken cargo slings lie rotting in a mess of grain refuse. The work is done. There is not a labourer's pay in her; the stevedores are gone ashore. ”

“ The next speaker was of a curiously soaked aspect, as if overlaid with the ooze, and slime, and decay of the riverside, like some rotting log or a lurking snag, worthless in itself, without a use on either land or water, neither afloat nor ashore, its only mission of submerged malice to drive its tooth into the hull of some stanch steamer and drag it down, with its living freight, and its wealth of cargo, and its destroyed machinery, to a grave among the lifeless roots. ”

“ The story of docks and harbours, of the loading and unloading of the war freights merits a chapter of its own. To understand it you must remember that ships are of many sizes and of very varying draught. The depths of water in the ports, the tides, the quay accommodation, the provision of cranes and sorting sheds, of available railway trucks have in each case to be considered. Grain requires one type of machinery for unloading, timber another, fruit or meat yet another. ”