UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



gation on the rivers, the English were forced 

 to abandon water transportation and to strike 

 into the dense forests, following at first the In- 

 dian trails and the paths of wild animals. The 

 Mohegan Indian path, which Washington fol- 

 lowed on his mission to the French in 1754, be- 

 came later the route of the Baltimore & Ohio 

 Railroad. In like manner Indian paths and 

 early highways marked out the routes from 

 Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, from Albany to 

 Lake Erie, and from the Shenandoah Valley 

 through Cumberland Gap to the falls of the 

 Ohio at Louisville. .The latter path was fol- 

 lowed by Daniel Boone in 1769, and it was 

 over this route that Kentucky was settled. 



These rough trails, however, were insufficient 

 to unite remote sections in a community of in- 

 terest or feeling. It was therefore evident, 

 even before the close of the American Revolu- 

 tion, that the future of the country depended 

 upon overcoming the barrier of the Appala- 

 chian Mountains. This was accomplished fir^t 

 by the construction of the National Road from 

 the Potomac through to the Ohio River in 1818, 

 and especially by the opening in 1825 of the 

 Erie Canal, which connects the navigable Hud- 

 son with the Great Lakes. These became the 

 first bonds of union between the East and the 

 West. 



The work of unification was powerfully fur- 

 thered by the steamboat, which first appeared 

 on the Ohio in 1811, but was not perfected so 

 that it could navigate against the current with 

 certainty until 1818. For more than a genera- 

 tion the commerce of the United States was 

 carried chiefly by river, lake and canal. The 

 first railroad in the United States, the Balti- 

 more & Ohio, was begun on the 4th of July, 

 1828, but for many years railroads were re- 

 garded merely as feeders of the waterways and 

 as connecting links betu.rn them. The first 

 continuous line of railroad, beginning at tide- 

 r on the Atlantic, reached Buffalo in 1842; 

 r, in 1851; Chicago, in 1852; the 

 Mississippi River, at Rock Island, in 185-1; th<> 

 Missouri, at Saint Joseph, in 1859; and the 

 Pacific Ocean, at San Francisco, in 1869. Mean- 

 ls.",o, the first railroad had also been 

 opened i <lulf of Mexico to the Great 



Lakes the Illinois Central. The driving of the 

 last spike on the Union Pacific marked at once 

 H." political unification of the United States 

 and the commercial conquest of the continent. 



Transportation in New England. The broken 

 coast line of New England renders it by natun- 

 the most maritime section of the country. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



labors under serious handicaps in foreign com- 

 merce, which have only been overcome by great 

 energy and perseverance. In the first place, its 

 ports lie farther from the interior than Balti- 

 more or New York; again, it is shut off from 

 the interior by the Berkshire Hills, which com- 

 pels a climb of a thousand feet and therefore 

 increase the cost of transportation; finally, 

 the trend of the valleys of New England is to- 

 ward the Saint Lawrence River, but the politi- 

 cal frontier largely closes to the commerce of 

 the United States this natural route to the in- 

 terior of the continent. All. of these natural 

 disadvantages, however, are in a measure off- 

 set, so far as foreign commerce is concerned, by 

 the fact that the railways make the same rate 

 to Boston as to New York on shipments from 

 the West for export to other countries. 



An eight-mile sea-level ship canal has also 

 been constructed between Cape Cod Bay and 

 Buzzard's Bay to avoid the long and dangerous 

 route around Cape Cod (see CAPE COD CANAL). 

 This Cape Cod Canal may render Boston a 

 port of call for some of the vessels plying be- 

 tween Europe and New York. The completion 

 of the bridge across the Saint Lawrence to 

 Quebec will also naturally tend to bring Port- 

 land, Maine, into closer relations with the re- 

 gion north of the Saint Lawrence and east of 

 Montreal, so far at least as the political bound- 

 ary does not interfere. New England is now 

 traversed not only by a net of steam railroads 

 but also by another series of electric lines. 

 which have made almost all parts of it much 

 like the suburbs of a great city. 



In the Middle Atlantic Section. In the Mid- 

 dle Atlantic states canals were early built up 

 the Delaware, Schuylkill. Susquehanna and Po- 

 tomac valleys and also across the watershed 

 between the Delaware and the Hudson n 

 The main service of these canals has been to 

 cany coal from the mines to tidewater and to 

 New York. However, these canals ha 

 been abandoned or have passed under the con- 

 trol of the coal-carrying railroads and are there- 

 fore of little practical importance. N 

 leas, it seems likely that if the Delaware and 

 Raritan Canal should be deepened to four 

 feet, it would become a large factor in tlu 

 coal trade of New York and New England. 

 New York, unl.kc Pennsylvania, has retained 

 control of its canals which connect the Hudson 

 with the Great Lakes at Oawego and at Buffalo, 

 while another canal goes north from the Hud- 

 son to the Saint Lawrence by way of Lak 

 Champlain. These canals have been toll free 



