FENCES AND FUEL. 431 



foresting of the regions of which they are the arteries. Our own 

 country is not an exception. Streams which the early records of the 

 United States show to have been sufficient to float not only barges 

 with several tons of produce, but vessels of war even, will not now 

 float a skiff at the same seasons of the year. A very little examina 

 tion will show that in its bearing on the great question of inland nav 

 igation we have as a nation many many millions of dollars annually 

 involved in it. This interest is increasing in magnitude no less rap 

 idly than is our material growth. The famous engineer, Brunei, 

 used to say that &quot;God made rivers on purpose to feed canals.&quot; 

 Official experiments carried on in this State, during the last year or 

 two, have demonstrated that by the use of steam on our canals, 

 freight can be transported between the seabord and the great lakes 

 in half the time previously required to move it by horse power. We 

 know, too, that eight pounds of traction are required to move a ton 

 of freight on a level by rail, while less than one fourth that traction 

 is required to move a ton afloat in still water. A fair average price 

 of moving freight by rail is $30 per ton, per 1,000 miles. Most of 

 our farmers boys have enough arithmetic at command to enable 

 them, by use of the above factors and of the census reports, indi 

 cating the amount of grain and other products of farms, mines and 

 factories we have to transport, to show that we have an amount 

 here involved annually exceeding the interest on the public debt. 

 There is no doubt that the great body of our freight can and should 

 be floated instead of rolled, leaving the railways still plenty of 

 work in carrying passengers, express and mails. No more silvacult- 

 ure than is needed for timber, for fuel and manufacturing, and 

 kindred purposes, or that will &quot;pay&quot;&quot; as such, will so restore and 

 preserve these streams as to make them available for the grandest 

 system of inland navigation the world ever saw. England has so 

 elaborate a system, that between using the channels of scarce a 

 score of streams few of which are large enough to be called rivers 

 in America, together with canal connections, that the aggregate 

 length of her inland lines is more than ten times her territorial 

 length. 



To secure a system similarly continuous in this country we should 

 require in some cases to construct &quot; slack water&quot; courses, but that 

 in turn would nearly or quite pay for itself in adding to well dis 

 tributed hydraulic power for manufacturing purposes. Over a large 

 majority of such lines river boats would run, which would move at 

 full treble the speed of steam canal boats, and so be available for 

 passenger travel. Less than fifty years will see not alone the Mis 

 sissippi, the lakes and the Atlantic connected by ship canals, and 

 the Chesapeake and Ohio united; it will witness the headwaters be 

 tween the Missouri and the Columbia, and also many of the minor 

 streams tributary to these and to others of the major arteries, so im 

 proved by means of combined forest and navigation engineering 

 that the farmers, miners and manufacturers of the next century will 

 have their freight moved at rates fabulously low compared to those 

 now paid. In cases where &quot;summit levels&quot; could not be &quot; locked&quot; 

 over, the transit could be made, as is now done over the Alleghany 

 mountains, by section-boats mounted on rail-cars. We presume it 

 is not necessary to review the ground gone over in previous papers 



