INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DUKING THE YEAR 187G. ccxxi 



skill of the engineer." The proposed route is described as follows : 

 From New Orleans to St. Marks, in Florida, a series of lakes, lagoons, 

 waterways, all navigable, extend along the coast, separated here and 

 there at long intervals by low necks of land, requiring but little 

 more than skillful dredging to open the route to the Suwanee River 

 in Florida. From the Suwanee to the Great St. Mary's River, which 

 from the proposed point of junction pours its stately flood unimpeded 

 by rock or shoal into the Atlantic Ocean, near the southernmost 

 point of Cumberland Island, the distance is only thirty miles. By 

 this plan, and at a moderate cost (for the canal would only need to 

 have a depth of from seven to eight feet to float the largest steamers 

 or craft frequenting these rivers), 20,000 miles of rivers and naviga- 

 ble waters, already swarming with craft, and eager for commerce, 

 will be opened up, and, to use the words of one of the enthusiastic 

 advocates of the enterprise, " the Southern planter or the Western 

 crrano-er from the remotest districts will be enabled to ship their 

 produce by the easiest and cheapest mode of transportation known 

 to commerce, and without breaking bulk, to ocean-going steamers 

 and shipping of any tonnage lying in the safe har])ors and anchor- 

 ages of the Atlantic coast, . . . thus avoiding all the dangers now 

 incident to the navigation of the Bahamas, the reefs of Florida, and 

 the Gulf of Mexico." 



The appearance of the Annual Report of the Suez Canal Company, 

 which was made at Paris on the 27th of June last, enables us to 

 bring forward the statistics of this improvement to the close of the 

 year 1875. The report aflbrds the information that the traffic on the 

 canal has continued steadily to increase, amounting in 1875 to 1494 

 ships, with an actual tonnage of 2,940,708. (For 1874 the fig- 

 ures were 12G4 ships; tonnage, 1,631,640.) The receipts for 1875 

 were 30,827,194 francs ; and the expenditures, including interest, 

 29,727,047 francs. The company declared a dividend of 1 franc 88 

 centimes per share. 



The past year has witnessed the practical abandonment of the sys- 

 tem of steam canal-boats, of which so much had been anticipated. 

 The company which was the recipient of the liberal prize of the 

 State of New York for the best system, it appears, has gone into 

 bankruptcy ; while, on the other hand, the cable-towing system 

 known as the Belgian system which was specially excluded from 

 competition for the prize, has been in successful operation on the 

 Erie Canal during the past year between Middleport and Buffalo, a 

 distance of forty-two miles, giving great satisfaction. The charge 

 to boatmen is the same as for horse-power, but the speed is two or 

 three times as great. The merits of this system have been so thor- 

 oughly tested and well established abroad that it is difficult to un- 

 derstand in what respects it does not realize all tlie desiderata that 

 can be asked for in the application of steam to canals. 



