■HI
¿¡if
ilS
used for carrying wood and other similar things to the towns,
but in most departments they hare gradually been supplanted by
steamers:
According to the official statistics, the number of vessels employed
in home coast-traffic is as follows:
Number of Sailing-Vessels . . . .
» - Steamers .
Tonnage of Sailing-Vessels . . . .
» - Steamers ...........................
1866 1876 1885 ' 1897
2,439
46
53,302
2,890
2,622
109
66,438
7,753
2,567
236
68,340
13,574
2,934
362
72,283'
16,946
The number of voyages and their tonnage together for 1885,
are represented by the following figures:
Number of
Voyages
Tonnage
Sailing-Vessels ............................................................... 18,857 677,669
63,842 3,688,418
The steamers had thus at that date already taken 86.5 per
cent of the coast-traffic tonnage.
These official figures do not, however, nearly represent the
whole extent of the coast traffic, for they include .only those ships
that have not obtained their certificate of nationality for foreign
voyages. This, however, most of the larger steamers have, that
Tim in regular routes along the coast. If these packet-boats and
all steamers under 100 tons are reckoned as belonging to the coast
traffic, the number of steamers for 1897 would be 501 with a
tonnage of 42,600 register tons.
If we suppose that these ships in 1897 have made, on an
average, as many voyages annually as those, without a certificate
of nationality did in 1885, they will represent a tonnage of
9,800,000 tons, as against 528,000 for sailing-vessels.
There is no estimate of the stowage of ships in home traffic. ■
In order, however, to form an approximate idea of the home goods
traffic by sea, we may presume that each net register ton (100