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National Geographic : 1925 Jul
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REDISCOVERING THE RHINE to transship cargo or dis c h a r ge it prematurely; hence a Rhine bill of lading contains special protective clauses, such as "low-water supplements." With the outskirts of the Black Forest on our left, our small group of steam towed barges moved slowly upstream between the dikes, or walls, which here and there spoke of protection against the possibility of floods descending from the river's Alpine reaches. Would it be advantageous to construct a 127-kilometer canal, paralleling the Rhine, between Strasbourg and Basel? The French think so, and the projected plans indicate a 6o per cent cut in transportation costs between the two cities. Swiss opin ion prefers "the free Rhine" and its regularization by the creation of channels in the river bed. A FERRYBOAT WITH A UNIQUE POWER DEVICE The Strasbourg-to-Basel -/L section of the Rhine is open for about 200 days a year. The hard upstream pull is TilE SPALE in part recompensed by the rapidity of the return trip, a fast-freight steam barge making Stras bourg in five hours, and reaching Rotter dam within three days. The genius which turns obstacles into assets was certainly evident in the bank to-bank ferryboat which we sighted on pulling into Basel. It functioned by transforming the swift current of 5 to 9 feet per second into a force which yielded the craft a lateral direction. The outfit was simplicity itself: a tele graph wire, strung overhead from bank to bank, and a smallish boat pointed up stream, its bow connected by a line to two traveling wheels which ran along the wire (see page 36). The steersman merely jammed his Photograph from Melville Chater NTIIOR, BUILT IN 1400, FINEST OF TIIE OLD GATES OF BASEL powerful rudder, so as to deflect the boat to a position slightly lateral to the head on current. Immediately the side swipe of waters put it in motion, causing a drag on the telegraph wire; the traveling wheels began to move, and-hey, presto !-the launch sped across the Rhine to the oppo site landing stage. The return trip was effected by the steersman jamming his rudder in the re verse direction, thereby pointing his prow slightly toward the opposite bank. The device, which was adopted 6o years ago from similar boats seen on the M1oselle River, is in use at four of Basel's ferries. The spectacle of Father Rhine supplying mechanical force for crossing
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