566 ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



these 16 years rail business nearly trebled in volume, and river com- 

 merce fell to one-third of its 1890 figures (St. Louis Merchants' Ex- 

 change Eeport). Grain has almost disappeared from the rivers. 

 Cotton is no longer carried in quantity. The main items of river 

 commerce are coal, sand, and forest products. Notwithstanding large 

 sums for new improvements, nothing seems to have checked this 

 decline in river commerce, wherever it has shown a positive tendency. 

 With the exception of the Monongahela, and perhaps one or two 

 other streams, the best that can be said for the busiest streams in this 

 entire valley is that they are holding their own in tonnage from year 

 to year, an admission in itself that the rivers are not sharing in the 

 development of the region through which they pass. 



The rivers entering the Gulf are, in general, comparatively unim- 

 portant as commerce carriers, with the exception of the Mississippi, 

 which as a Gulf port has a river commerce which amounted to 

 4,278,947 tons in 1912 at New Orleans, and for the 10 years preced- 

 ing it showed a substantial increase. The main Gulf rivers are those 

 of Alabama and those of Texas. Of the former, the Alabama River 

 with its tributaries is the most important, owing to its length of 825 

 miles of continuous waterway. This importance also arises from 

 the location and direction as it proceds from the interior of the State 

 and flows to Mobile and the Gulf. The most recent project, that of 

 1910, provides for a channel 4 feet deep, at low water, and 200 feet 

 wide, from the Mobile River, where depths are sufficient for river 

 boats, up to Wetumpka, just above Montgomery on the Coosa River. 

 The channels of the Coosa are partly through regulated and partly 

 through canalized portions. Work on the Alabama River has 

 already cost about $852,000, and on the Coosa, $2,045,000. The pro- 

 ject for the Coosa provides for 23 locks and dams. The commerce 

 of the Alabama in 1912 was 139,846 tons, valued at about $7,000,000 ; 

 and on the Coosa, 52,342 tons, valued at a little over a million dol- 

 lars. On the Coosa there is a notable example of a dam which is 

 being built for power purposes under Government permission. It 

 has a lift of over 63 feet and is to be provided, later, with locks for 

 passing vessels. It is now completed and in operation. It will pond 

 the water back for over 15 miles and will furnish a navigable channel 

 4 feet deep or more for that distance. 



The Warrior and Tombigbee Rivers form a continuous line of 

 water communication from the mouth in Mobile Bay up to the forks 

 of the Warrior River and to the Warrior coal fields, about 407 miles. 

 The Tombigbee portion, 185 miles from the Gulf up to the Warrior 

 River, has been made navigable for 6- foot navigation by the con- 

 struction of three locks and dams and by regulating work, at a cost 

 of $1,348,000. This work is now completed. The Warrior River is 

 to have 15 locks and dams, of which 12 have been completed and 2 



