UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



since 1882 and are being deepened to twelve 

 feet at a cost of more than $100,000,000, that 

 they may carry 1,500-ton barges. This expense 

 was undertaken in the hope of meeting the 

 competition of the Saint Lawrence route by re- 

 ducing the cost of transportation between Buf- 

 falo and New York to about twenty-five cents 

 per ton. Finally, a coastwise canal connects the 

 Chesapeake and Delaware, and this is likely to 

 be replaced in the near future by a sea level 

 ship canal. Besides saving distance, the build- 

 ing of such a canal would tend to make Phila- 

 delphia a port of call on the northern route 

 from Baltimore to Europe. 



Transportation by sea costs on the average 

 not more than one-tenth as much as transpor- 

 tation by land. For this reason the great com- 

 mercial centers are found, not at the ends of 

 peninsulas but at the ends of bays, from which 

 the transportation by land will be as short as 

 possible. Accordingly, along the North At- 

 lantic coast the ports marked out by nature as 

 the centers of sea-borne commerce are Boston, 

 New* York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, pre- 

 cisely the places which actually have become 

 important seaports. New York not only has a 

 superb harbor, but by reason of the navigable 

 Hudson and the Mohawk Gap leading west- 

 ward from Albany through the mountains it 

 also enjoys unequaled ease of access to the in- 

 terior. This situation has made it the metropo- 

 lis of the continent, as well as the greatest com- 

 mercial seaport in the world. In addition to 

 the Mohawk Gap, the rivers offer other fairly- 

 easy routes to the interior of the continent. 



Even with dynamite at their disposal rail- 

 ways rarely penetrate mountains except along 

 pathways prepared by running water. Thus the 

 Potomac River furnishes the route of the Balti- 

 more & Ohio Railway, which follows, in part, 

 the very trail used by Washington ; the Juniata 

 branch of the Susquehanna is closely followed 

 by the Pennsylvania railroad; while the north 

 and west branches of the Susquehanna, together 

 with the Delaware, furnish the routes for the 

 Erie, the Lehigh Valley, the Lackawanna and 

 the Ontario & Western railroads. The Great 

 Lakes' route terminates at Buffalo on the east, 

 as it does at Chicago and Duluth on the west ; 

 and all the railroads crossing the mountains 

 strike either the Great Lakes or the Upper 

 Ohio. Buffalo and Pittsburgh are thus the two 

 northern gateways of the west. 



In the South-Atlantic Section. The Appa- 

 lachians rear a higher and more continuous 

 front south of the Potomac than north of it; 



in this section they are crossed by only four 

 railroads in five hundred miles; these, more- 

 over, have difficult grades. The two slopes of 

 the Appalachians therefore face commercially 

 in opposite directions. On the Atlantic slope, 

 one trunk line of railroad, roughly parallel with 

 the coast, traverses the plain below the fall line, 

 and another skirts the Blue Ridge, which offers 

 another, though more difficult, route to New 

 Orleans. Three of the railroads crossing the 

 Blue Ridge converge at the James River. New- 

 port News and Norfolk are, therefore, not only 

 the commercial outlets of Virginia and North 

 Carolina, but also of Cincinnati and Louisville. 

 They are especially important in the coal 

 trade. The fourth railroad across the Appala- 

 chians, following the French Broad River, con- 

 nects Knoxville and Charleston. Atlanta, op- 

 posite the first easy passage from the coast to 

 the Great Valley, is well named the "Gate City 

 of the South." Knoxville and Chattanooga, in 

 the Great Valley, are in turn the local points 

 of other railroads from the West and North 

 which enter by the Tennessee water gap at 

 Chattanooga and other depressions in the 

 mountain rim. 



South of Chesapeake Bay the land along 

 the shore is low and straight, while the coast 

 is lined with sand bars. The river mouths, 

 which have been drowned by a slight sinking of 

 the land, form the only harbors, and these need 

 frequent dredging to admit large vessels. Con- 

 ditions are therefore not favorable for water 

 transportation, and many of the principal towns 

 are found along the fall line at the inner mar- 

 gin of the coastal plain. In the region south 

 of Cape Hatteras the principal seaport is Sa- 

 vannah, located where the broad curve of the 

 shore brings the ocean nearest to the interior. 



In the South-Central Section. Thomas Jef- 

 ferson declared any foreign nation controlling 

 the mouth of the Mississippi River would be 

 "the natural and necessary enemy of the United 

 States," sines it is the natural outlet by water 

 of nearly half of the country. The lower 

 Mississippi, ice free and of ample depth, is still 

 a great highway of commerce, in spite of a 

 veritable network of railroads. Its tributaries, 

 penetrating the coal fields, are also important, 

 especially the Tennessee, which is now navi- 

 gable to Knoxville. After the War of Seces- 

 sion, however, the eastward trend of traffic by 

 rail to the North tended to rob even the Missis- 

 sippi of its old-time importance and therefore 

 to divert traffic from the Gulf ports. Neverthe- 

 less, the Mississippi Valley offers a level field 



