Puget Sound Lumber Sails for South Africa

While men have been trying to secure the establishment of a steamship line to the Orient, another steamship line has been put in from this port that promises to become a great factor in commerce. It is nothing more nor less than a transportation line to South Africa. So far one ship and two steamships have been sent to Delagoa Bay, and within a fortnight another ship will have started on the long voyage half the distance around the globe.

The line is backed by C. F. Neame & Co., lumber manufacturers and dealers of London and Paris, and the Puget Sound agents are the Port Blakely Mill Company and the Tacoma Mill Company. The new enterprise is the Puget Sound & South Africa Steamer and Clipper Line, commonly known as the Lingham line, and it runs in connection with the Delagoa Bay & Johannesburg Railroad.

The experiment began last December with the ship Levenbank, which carried 2,000,000 feet of lumber, 500 doors, a quantity of sash and miscellaneous freight, including salmon. In March the steamer Beldisloe left with a mixed cargo, also including 2,000,000 feet of lumber, while about a month ago the Norwegian steamer Solveig sailed from Port Blakely with 2,500,000 feet of lumber. The next vessel will be the Swedish steamer Oscar II, due the latter part of the week, which will take from the Tacoma Mill Company a shipment of 2,000,000 feet of lumber.

By far the most interesting feature is the large amount of lumber taken by steamer and rail from Puget Sound to Johannesburg. The Delagoa Bay & Johannesburg road is about 400 miles long and strikes from the coast into the Transvaal. The shipments show the demand for Washington lumber in that section. Not a thousand miles to the north of Johannesburg there is said to be an immense belt of timber, but it is not accessible for lack of railroads and development, and shipments are eagerly received from the other side of the earth more than 10,000 miles away. The African timber is hardwood and not nearly so well adapted to building purposes as the lumber from Puget Sound. The prophecy is made that lumber shipments to South Africa may yet equal the trade with the islands of the sea. The clear lumber of the Pacific Northwest is displacing the inferior spruce and fir from the Baltic sent into Africa, just as it has already outstripped competitors in Australia.