NAVIGATION RESOURCES OF AMERICAN 



WATERWAYS 



By EMORY R, JOHNSON, Ph.D. 

 Professor of Transportation and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 



THE primary purpose of this paper is to 

 describe the water transportation sys- 

 tem within the United States, to state 

 what has been spent upon improving our 

 waterways, to give the facts regarding the 

 present use of our lakes, canals, and rivers, 

 to point out and account for the progress of 

 the coastwise and Great Lakes commerce, 

 and to explain the decline of the traffic 

 upon canals and upon most of our rivers. 

 In order to add to the significance of the 

 data regarding the United States, the mile- 

 age and traffic of the inland waterways of 

 England, France, and Germany are given. 

 The discussion closes with a summary of the 

 facts and conditions that indicate a larger 

 use of American waterways in the future. 



The inland waterways of the United 

 States comprises about 25,000 miles of navi- 

 gated rivers, a nearly equal mileage of 

 streams that can be made navigable by the 

 improvement of their channels and the reg- 

 ulation of the flow of their waters, the five 

 Great Lakes with a combined length of 

 1,410 miles, and 2,120 miles of operated 

 canals. In addition to these rivers, lakes, 

 and canals there are 2,500 miles of sounds, 

 bays, and bayous, capable of being con- 

 verted by means of connecting canals aggre- 

 gating less than 1,000 miles in length, into 

 a continuous and safe inner route for the 

 coastwise traffic of the Atlantic and Gulf. 

 The waterways in our country — rivers, 

 canals, lakes, and coastal channels — have an 

 aggregate length of between 55,000 and 

 60,000 miles, and only about half of the en- 

 tire mileage is now used for navigation. 



Considering the great length and un- 

 doubted value of our inland waterways, 

 comparatively little has been done to make 

 them commercially useful. The most effect- 

 ive work has been done in improving the 

 harbors and channels of Lakes Superior. 

 Michigan, Huron, and Erie, where natural 

 depths of eight and twelve feet have been 

 increased to twenty-one, with the result that 

 the freight now shipped on the Great Lakes 

 — 75,000,000 tons in 1903 — is three times 

 what it was in 1890. The traffic passing 

 the St. Mary's locks rose from a million and 

 a quarter tons in 1880 to seven and a half 

 millions in 1889, and to forty-one and a 

 quarter million tons in 1906, an increase of 



572 



3.200 per cent. This commerce on the Great 

 Lakes has been made possible by total con- 

 gressional appropriations of less than a hun- 

 dred million dollars. 



The total appropriations made by Con- 

 gress from the beginning of 1907 for the 

 rivers of the Mississippi Valley amount to 

 $208,484,720. This seems to be a relatively 

 large sum ; but it should be remembered 

 first, that over $17,000,000 of this total were 

 expended — and wisely spent — upon the 

 Mississippi River between New Orleans 

 and the Gulf and had reference rather to 

 maritime than to inland commerce ; and 

 second, that on some rivers, particularly the 

 Mississippi, appropriations have been 

 largely spent in levee construction and other 

 work which, while indirectly helpful to 

 navigation, was intended primarily to pre- 

 vent the rviers from destroying the lives 

 and property of those living on or near its 

 banks. With the exception of the Ohio (in- 

 cluding the Monongahela and Kanawha) and 

 Mississippi and a few other large rivers, 

 relatively little has been expended since 

 1890 by the Federal Government in better- 

 ing river navigation. When we consider 

 that the United States has spent during the 

 past hundred years in regulating, improving, 

 and extending our system of natural water- 

 ways only four and one-half per cent, of 

 the amount private capitalists have invested 

 in the construction of railways, our Congres- 

 sional appropriations for the betterment of 

 inland navigation seems to have been con- 

 servatively small. 



In the canalization of rivers the United 

 States is making some headway, portions of 

 twenty-three streams having been canalized 

 to an aggregate length of 1,520 miles in 1906. 

 This, however, was a gain of but 442 miles 

 over the figures of 1889. When only the 

 more important rivers shall have been ade- 

 quately canalized there will be several times 

 1,500 miles of slackwater navigation. 



The United States operated twelve canals 

 in 1906 with a combined length of 78.19 

 miles. These, however, were constructed tc 

 overcome obstructions to lake and river navi 

 gation and were not independent waterways. 

 In 1907 the Hennepin Canal, from the Mis- 

 sissippi River at Rock Island, to the Illinois 

 River at its great bend, was put in operation 



