wrecking apparatus, $35.43; pilot house, kitchen, and pantry, $25.66; new rudder and its dock, $342.35; total, $2,007.12.

In addition to the work reported above, several wrecks occurred during the year, which endangered navigation and demanded immediate removal when the Woodruff was too far distant or was undergoing repairs, and was consequently not available. Under these conditions Inspector S. H. Fowler fitted out the U. S. steam launch Wenonah at Davis Island dam, and removed the following wrecks in the vicinity of Pittsburg: One coal barge 1 mile above the dam, 1 coal barge and the remains of another near the head of Logstown bar, 1 coal boat at Merrimans Ripple and 1 at Deadmans Island, 1 model barge at McKees Rocks, and completed work on the remains of the steamer Elizabeth, most of which had been previously removed by the Woodruff; and with hired steamboats in February, 1904, when heavy ice prevented the use of the launch, removed 2 coal barges and 1 coal boat at the Steubenville Bridge, and in April 1 coal barge at Grape Island. At Rising Sun, Ind., a serious obstruction directly in the channel proved on examination to be the remains of two barges (originally loaded with steel rails) about which a bar had formed in such a way as to entirely obliterate the natural channel. As the snag boat was then engaged in urgent work on the upper river, the hired dredge in use on the removal of blasted rock at Licking bar was transferred to this point August 27, 1903, and by September 4, with a double crew working sixteen hours per day, had removed 267 large timbers, 11.5 cords broken timbers, 9 steel rails, and 4,250 yards gravel, clearing the channel of all obstruction at this locality.

In my annual reports for the years 1902 and 1903 I expressed the opinion that if two light-draft steamboats were added to the plant pertaining to the general improvement of the Ohio River they would, among other purposes related to that work, be of very great utility as substitutes for the Woodruff during low-water periods, and this opinion has been amply confirmed by the experience of the year just closed.

List of steamboat wrecks, by name, removed from the Ohio River during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1904, by the U. S. snag boat E. A. Woodruff.

Summary of expenditures for operating snag boats on Ohio River for the fiscal year ending

June 30, 1904.

DD 4.

BRIDGES OVER OHIO RIVER IMPEDING SAFE AND CONVENIENT NAVIGATION.

UNITED STATES ENGINEER OFFICE,

Cincinnati, Ohio, December 22, 1903. GENERAL: Under date of September 18, 1903, I submitted to the Department a list of bridges over the Ohio River which are, in my opinion, impediments to safe and convenient navigation, the duty of preparing this list and other related information called for by the river and harbor act of June 13, 1902, having been assigned to me by the Chief of Engineers.

That list has been slightly revised since it was originally prepared, and the following is now submitted as a substitute for it:

(A) BRIDGES WITH CHANNEL SPANS LESS THAN 500 FEET.

Beaver Bridge (Pittsburg and Lake Erie Railway), 25.3 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel span 426 feet, with clear height of 45.5 feet above highest water and 88.9 feet above low water; built in 1878 under act of Congress approved December 17, 1872.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $73,740.

Steubenville Bridge (Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway), 66.2 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel span 303 feet, with clear height of 42 feet above highest water and 89.6 feet above low water; built in 1862-63 under act of Congress approved July 14, 1862. Losses due to collision with piers reported as $122,358.

Bellaire Bridge (Baltimore and Ohio Railway), 94.1 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Principal channel span 322 feet, with clear height of 38.9 feet above highest water and 90 feet above low water, and a contiguous "through" or channel span of 213.8 feet at same elevation; built in 1871-72 under act of Congress approved July 14, 1862.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $150,126.

Parkersburg Bridge (Baltimore and Ohio Railway), 183.7 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Principal channel span, 326.5 feet, with clear height of 38 feet above highest water and 90 feet above low water, and a contiguous "through" or channel span of 326.5 feet at same elevation; built in 1870-71, under act of Congress approved July 14,

1862.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $110,348.47.

Point Pleasant Bridge (Kanawha and Michigan Railway), 264.3 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel span, 400 feet, with clear height of 30.9 feet above highest water and 91.4 feet above low water; built in 1882-1886, under act of Congress approved December 17, 1872. Losses due to collision with piers reported as $9,660.

Newport and Cincinnati Bridge (railway and highway), 467.9 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel span, 490 feet, with clear height of 33 feet above highest water and 102.2 feet above low water; originally built in 1871-72, under acts of Congress approved July 14, 1862, and March 3, 1869, and rebuilt in 1895-1897, with increased present channel span.

ENG 1904-153

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $48,107.

Ohio Falls Bridge (Pennsylvania Railway), 599 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel span over "Indiana Chute," 380 feet; over "Middle Chute," 353 feet, each with clear height of 96.5 feet above the level of low water in the Indiana Chute; also a double draw span over the Louisville and Portland Canal, with swing of approximately 100 feet on each side of pivot pier. Built about 1865, under charter from the State of Kentucky and under acts of Congress approved July 14, 1862, and February 17, 1865.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $202,050.

Kentucky and Indiana Bridge (railway and highway), 602 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Two channel spans, one of 461 feet and the other 464 feet, both with clear height of 35.5 feet above highest water and 106.5 feet above low water; built in 1881-1888, probably under act of Congress approved December 17, 1872.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $34,267.

(B) BRIDGES WITH CHANNEL SPANS GREATER THAN 500 FEET.

Wheeling and Martins Ferry Bridge (railroad) 88.7 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel span, 500 feet, with clear height of 40.5 feet above highest water and 90 feet above low water; built in 1889-1892, under acts of Congress approved December 17, 1872, and February 14, 1883.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $12,150.

Kenova Bridge (Norfolk and Western Railway), 315 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel span, 500 feet, with clear height of 35 feet above highest water and 98 feet above low water; built in 1890-1892, under acts of Congress approved December 17, 1872, and February 14, 1883.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $64,450.

Chesapeake and Ohio Bridge (railway and highway), 469.2 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel span, 524 feet, with clear height of 37 feet above highest water and 105.3 feet above low water; built in 1888-89, under acts of Congress of December 17, 1872, and February 14, 1883.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $2,400.

Cincinnati Southern Bridge (railway with footway), 470.7 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel span, 500 feet, with clear height of 34.2 feet above highest water and 101.5 feet above low water; built in 1878-1881, under act of Congress of December 17, 1872.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $14,812.

Louisville and Jeffersonville Bridge (railway with footway), 597.5 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.--Channel span 538 feet, with clear height of 48.7 feet above highest water, and 92.8 feet above low water; built in 1891-1893 under acts of Congress approved December 17, 1872, and February 14, 1883.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $7,800.

Henderson Bridge (railway), 974.5 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel span 500 feet, with clear height of 63.5 feet above highest water and 101.3 feet above low water; built in 1883-1888 under acts of Congress approved December 17, 1872, and February 14, 1883.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $37,160.

Cairo Bridge (railway), 963 miles below Pittsburg, Pa.-Channel

span 503 feet, with clear height of 51.4 feet above highest water and 105.2 feet above low water; built in 1887-1890 under acts of Congress approved December 17, 1872, and February 14, 1883.

Losses due to collision with piers reported as $32,419.95.

A series of maps" is forwarded herewith, showing the location and elevation of each of the bridges included in the foregoing list.

The act of Congress approved July 14, 1862, required that the main channel span of any continuous bridge erected under authority of that act should be not less than 300 feet in length, and that one of the spans adjoining it should be not less than 220 feet in length. The act of December 17, 1872, required that the main channel span of any bridge built under its authority should be such as to give a clear width of at least 400 feet between the channel piers, and this minimum width was finally, by act of February 14, 1883, which is still in force, increased to 500 feet. Thus it appears that Congress determined twenty years ago that this clear width of 500 feet was the least that would then provide for a reasonably safe navigation on the Ohio River. It is therefore assumed that each of the bridges named in Class A of the above list will be readily admitted as now being impediments to safe and convenient navigation. And, considering the great increase in commerce that has developed since that width became the legal minimum, and the steady advance that has been made in long-span bridge construction during this period, all of them may properly be characterized as unreasonable obstructions to navigation.

All the bridges included in Class B of the foregoing list, are complained of by the coal-towing interests as being obstructive and dangerous to navigation by descending fleets, and losses due to collisions with their piers are of record in this office to the extent indicated in the list, though the principal channel span of each of the bridges ranges from 500 to 538 feet. In this connection the following extract from a communication sent to me by the secretary of the Pittsburg Coal Exchange is quoted:

The towing system of transportation which prevails on the Ohio and some other rivers, in consequence of the dimensions of these tows, requires large room to safely pass the many natural, and the large number of artificial obstructions. Costly experirience has demonstrated that commerce as it now exists ought to have, as a general fact, bridge-channel passages of 700 or 800 feet, as may be determined by location. Tows are liable to be caught in fogs when it is impossible to land, and are forced to float with the currents, at the risk of colliding with bridge piers, or machinery may break and put the boat and tow in the same conditions as when caught in a fog; under such conditions all piers are dangerous obstructions. Of course, the fewer piers and the wider the channel passages the less the danger. Narrow bridge channels increase danger and cost of transportation in a threefold way: (1) By unavoidable collisions with piers; (2) by enforced delay, having to tie up overnight for daylight to run dangerous bridge-channel passages; (3) by the extra expense of sending a second steamer as a helper as far as Steubenville, Ohio, and sometimes as far as Bellaire, Ohio, 90 miles below Pittsburg, to help the steamer and tow past these dangerous bridges; the average cost of such helping steamers is from $200 to $400 per trip. The cost of tying up a big steamer at night, wear of lines in landing, and pay of employees and fuel amounts to $200 per night. A careful estimate of the cost of enforced detentions and tie ups on account of faulty bridge-channel passages foots up, in the last fifteen or twenty years, the enormous sum of over two millions of dollars, an indefensible limitation of navigation on a national highway of trade and travel.

In the twenty years ending in 1883, Congress increased the minimum permissible width of waterway under the principal span of Ohio

a Not printed.

River bridges from 300 to 500 feet, but nearly twenty-one years have now passed without further extension of the 500-foot minimum that was established by the act of February 14, 1883. In this interval commerce, and the size of tows and towboats engaged in it, have so increased as to require considerably more channel room at the passage of bridges, while the science of bridge construction has so advanced in the meantime that a span of 750 feet in now as feasible, practically, as one of 500 feet was in 1883. These facts appear to be generally conceded by parties who have recently sought authority to erect bridges over the Ohio, judging from the applications that have passed through this office and been acted upon by the Secretary of War during the last three years; the number of applications was eight, and the widths of channel span as originally proposed by applicant, together with the widths finally required by the Secretary of War, are shown in the following statement:

Proposed by applicant.

Required by Secretary of War.

520; 563; 630; 650; 650; 700; 750; 800 feet 700; 650; 700; 750; 700; 700; 750; 800 feet

It is also to be observed that the locations of all these bridges are between Pittsburg, Pa., and Marietta, Ohio, and none of them in the wider portion of the river below.

In addition to furnishing a list of bridges which are impediments to safe and convenient navigation, the river and harbor act of June 13, 1902, requires the Secretary of War to report (1) the nature and extent of the modifications required in each of them, (2) an estimate of the cost thereof on each bridge, and (3) whether the necessary changes can be secured under existing law, and if not, what legislation is necessary to secure them. I regret to say that the constant pressure of other duties has prevented me, thus far, from obtaining such complete data and information as is required to fully and satisfactorily answer these important questions. For this reason they must be dealt with, for the present, in a somewhat comprehensive and general way, instead of dealing specifically with each and every bridge.

The glaring trouble and cause of complaint in each case is insufficient width of waterway under the main-channel span, coupled in some instances with an unsatisfactory location of that span; that is to say, the towing interests insist that, while safe and convenient navigation of descending fleets demands wider channel spans as the prime consideration, the spans should not be in midstream, but so located that one of its piers shall be a shore pier, or nearly so, when the river is at a favorable coal-boating stage. Reference to the illustrations accompanying this report suggests that these conditions would be satisfied in most instances by substituting a single span for the present channel span and one of the spans adjoining it, and removing the pier that separates the waterway under the two contiguous spans. For example, consider the first bridge in the list above, the Beaver Bridge; its left-hand channel pier is a shore pier, and the substitution of a single span extending from that pier to the second on the right of it would, when the intermediate pier is removed, provide a channel span of about 700 feet. And taking the next in the list, the Steubenville Bridge, the substitution of a single span extending from the present left-hand channel pier to the second one beyond it on the Ohio shore would, with the intermediate pier removed, provide a channel span of about 535 feet with its right-hand pier close to shore