em to be much in the
claims of their inventor, Alexander McDougall, for their superior capacity
and stability, yet they have not been generally adopted. The largest
whaleback now on the lakes is named after Mr. McDougall, is four hundred
and thirty feet over all, fifty feet beam, and of eight thousand tons
capacity. She differs from the older models in having a straight stem
instead of the "pig's nose."

[Illustration: THE "WHALEBACK"]

The iron traffic which has grown to such monster proportions, and created
so noble a fleet of ships, began in 1856, when the steamer "Ontonagon"
shipped two hundred and ninety-six tons of ore at Duluth. To-day, one
ship of a fleet numbering hundreds will carry nine thousand tons, and
make twenty trips a season. Mr. Waldon Fawcett, who has published in the
"Century Magazine" a careful study of this industry, estimates the total
ore cargoes for a year at about 20,000,000 tons. The ships of the ore
fleet will range from three hundred and fifty to five hundred feet in
length, with a draft of about eighteen feet--at which figure it must stop
until harbors and channels are deepened. Their cost will average $350,000.
The cargoes are worth upward of $100,000,000 annually, and the cost of
transportation has been so reduced that in some instances a ton is carried
twenty miles for one cent. The seamen, both on quarterdeck and forecastle,
will bear comparison with their salt-water brethren for all qualities of
manhood. Indeed, the lot of the sailor on the lakes naturally tends more
to the development of his better qualities than does that of the
salt-water jack, for he is engaged by the month, or season, rather than by
the trip; he is never in danger of being turned adrift in a foreign port,
nor of being "shanghaied" in a home one. He has at least three months in
winter to fit himself for shore work if he desires to leave the water, and
during the season he is reasonably sure of seeing his family every
fortnight. A strong trades-union among the lake seamen keeps wages up and
regulates conditions of employment. At the best, however, seafaring on
either lake or ocean is but an ill-paid calling, and the earnings of the
men who command and man the great ore-carriers are sorely out of
proportion to the profits of the employing corporations. Mr. Fawcett
asserts that $11,250 net earnings for a single trip was not unusual in one
season, and that this sum might have been increased by $4500 had the
owners ta