LOCOMOTION BY EIVER AND KAILWAY. 



subject supplies most voluminous and valuable details,* the extent 

 of canals which were in operation in the United States on 

 January, 1, 1843, was 4333 miles. There was a further extent 

 projected, but not executed, amounting to 2359 miles. 



5. The total cost of executing the canals which were completed 

 was, according to M. Chevalier, 27,870964?., being at the average 

 rate of 6432?. per mile. 



Since the date of these returns considerable extension has been 

 given to the system of canal navigation by the opening of new 

 lines and the increased length of former ones, and it is probable that 

 the actual extent of artificial water-communication now in use in 

 the United States considerably exceeds 5000 miles. The average 

 cost of executing this prodigious system of water-roads was at the 

 rate of 6432?. per mile, so that 5000 miles would have absorbed a 

 capital of above 32,000000?. 



6. This extent of canal transport, compared with the population, 

 exhibits in a striking point of view the activity and enterprise 

 which characterise the American people. In the United States 

 there is a mile of canal navigation for every 5000 inhabitants, 

 while in England the proportion is a mile to every 9000 inhabit- 

 ants, and in France a mile to every 13000. The ratio, therefore, 

 of this instrument of intercommunication in the United States is 

 greater than in the United Kingdom, in proportion to the 

 population, as 9 to 5, and greater than in France in the ratio 

 of 13 to 5. 



II. RIVER NAVIGATION. 



7. The river navigation of the United States is on a scale com- 

 mensurate with the extent of their territory. The division of the 

 country east of the Alleghanies, forming the Atlantic States, is 

 drained by a vast number of rivers, of the first and second class, 

 all navigable for vessels of considerable burthen, the principal of 

 which are the Hudson, the Delaware, the Susquehanna, the Con- 

 necticut, the Potomac, the James, the Eoanoke, the Savannah, 

 and, to the southwards, the Atamala and the Alabama. 



The western division is drained by the Mississippi and its 

 hundred tributaries, navigable for vessels of great tonnage for 

 several thousands of miles. 



Besides the internal communication supplied by rivers, pro- 

 perly so called, a vast apparatus of water transport is derived from 

 the geographical character of the extensive coast, stretching for 

 about four thousand miles, from the Grulf of St. Lawrence to the 



* " Histoire et Description des Voies de Communication aux Etats Unis, 

 et des Travaux d'Art qui en dependent," par Michel Chevalier. Paris, 

 18401843. 

 20 



