206 A PEEP AT 



dating returns of both exports and imports," the mo- 

 neyed value of the commerce of the harbors of Erie 

 was $4.9,142,750. The average annual increase, for 

 the five years previous, is shown by the same official 

 documents to have been eighteen per cent. Suppo- 

 sing it to have been ten per cent, per annum for the 

 four years since, it will give $68,799,850 as the pres- 

 ent net money value to the commerce of Erie and 

 Michigan. 



In the year 1834 the number of steamboats on 

 the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and their tributaries, 

 was ascertained to be two hundred and thirty, with 

 an aggregate carrying capacity equal to thirty-nine 

 thousand tons. At the present time the entire num- 

 ber of steamboats running on the Mississippi and 

 Ohio, and their tributaries, is probably over rather 

 than under six hundred ; the aggregate tonnage of 

 which is not short of one hundred and forty thousand 

 tons. In 1846, Col. Abert, from reliable data, esti- 

 mated the net value of the trade of the Western 

 rivers at $183,609,735 per year. In 1848, Judge 

 Hall stated it at $220,000,000, in his statistics; 

 while the United States have since ordered a docu- 

 ment to be printed which estimates it at $256,133,- 

 820, for the year 1849 ! The same document puts 



