t907 ,] 



HAUPT— TRANSPORTATION IN THE UNITED STATES. 179 



consideration for 28 years at an estimated cost of only 2,700,000, less 

 than half of which is expended, yet the commerce passing last year 

 was estimated at more than $270,000,000. Over twenty years ago 

 Congress began the opening of the Warrior and Tombigbee rivers 

 to the greatest coal mines on earth. The improvement was esti- 

 mated to cost $3,000,000; it has subsequently been modified and the 

 estimate doubled, so that it will be many years before it is com- 

 pleted and made available. 



The subject of improving the Ohio has been under consideration 

 for more than a century . In 18 17-18 the state of Pennsylvania 

 began work to be carried as far as Wheeling. In 1835 Congress 

 applied $550,000 to the river for the 600 miles above the falls at 

 Louisville, and began removing snags and rocks but abandoned it 

 after a few years. The Pennsylvania Railroad organized a corpo- 

 ration to effect its improvement but the government intervened as 

 with other parties and it was not until 1875-6 that the system of 

 movable dams was finally determined upon for this stream and work 

 commenced by the government, in an effort to secure a six-foot 

 stage by such structures, at an estimated cost of some $50,000,000. 

 '' It has proceeded with a snail's pace," said Mr. Rausdell. " Out 

 of 52 locks of this system only six have been completed and four 

 others are in process of construction. The project has been changed 

 to one of 9 feet and the estimate increased to $63,000,000. If this 

 gigantic and most meritorous work is continued at the same rate 

 as for the past thirty years it will not be closed at the end of this 

 century." 



Long before that date the traffic will be demanding not less 

 than 14-feet, as Chicago is now doing from the lake to the gulf, and 

 as the state of New York demands to hold her trade against the 

 enterprising Canadians who have so wisely enlarged their St. 

 Lawrence canals to over 20 feet and are now proposing the Georgian- 

 Bay-Ottawa route to save still greater distances and costs. 



After enormous expenditures in efforts to deepen the Mississippi 

 and frequent changes of plans and personnel there is a possible gain 

 of three feet in the depths below Cairo, secured by the transient 

 method of hydraulic dredging, which does not remove the sedi- 

 ment from the bed but merelv shifts it from the shoals for the time 



