Note 27 — Chapter VIII

The elevators are equipped with "legs" or long spouts, within which belts with metal scoops transfer the grain from car to vessel or vice versa. The elevators at Buffalo will fill a canal-boat in an hour's time, or load six grain-cars in five minutes. A large whaleback steamship may be relieved of its 200,000 bushels in about three hours. Most of the east-bound wheat of the Middle West is transferred to the seaboard by rail, but that of the northwest, which forms the chief part of the crop, is shipped from Duluth through the St. Marys Falls Canal to Buffalo, where it is transferred to cars or to canal-boats. New York is the leading export market, but Boston, New Orleans, Galveston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia are also important shipping ports.