Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 277, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1910 — NEW TYPES OF RIVER BO ATS [ARTICLE]

NEW TYPES OF RIVER BO ATS

Steady, Successful Navigation Is ,N*w Assured—lntroduce New German Oil Engine. St. Louis. —It is stated that a company actively interested in the navigation of the Missouri river between St. Louis and Kansas City will not only introduce propellers on a vessel now in preparation, but also employ the oil engine that, invented in Germany, has made rapid progress in that country and is to be employed on a liner of the first-class. A survey of navigation as now conducted impresses the fact that the material improvements in the size, speed and general attractiveness of vessels have been on the oceans and lakes, says the Globe-Democrat. In no case have permanent deep channels failed to lead to the enlargement of the boats used and to add to the comforts of the passage. At the same time safety has been promoted, and there are few places where a sense of security is better justified than on an ocean liner with Its steel hull In compartments and its wireless instruments communicating with other ships within a range of hundreds of miles. Since lake channels were deepened, by government appropriations, from six feet to more than twenty, the type of vessels has been greatly enlarged, the speed increased and the facilities for loading and unloading bettered much more than tenfold. As yet little has been done for a permanent deep channel In the Missouri, but the appropriation for the work in the latest rivers and harbors bill is encouraging and Insures a beginning on the right scale. River boats of a new pattern will come in when a channel is assured, as ha* been the case on the Rhine and numerous other rivers of Europe. Two lost In the Miaslssipp! river by striking th* bank or

other obstruction, would not have gone to the bottom If provided with steel compartment hulls. Existing river boats have been built on the old models, and the uncertainty in the depth of channels has been a barrier to a general spirit of Improvement. Steel construction, propellers, turbines and a speed of over twenty miles-gn hour have become an old story on ocean and lakes. Little that Is new has been tested on the rivers. But in the light of what has been accomplished in Europe, the steady, successful navigation of rivers is not a problem at all, but an assured thing. A demonstration of improved navigation on the so-called Intractable Missouri would be a fine start for new river conditions.