OHIO VALLEY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION 



613 



H. M. Chittenden, he urged, with re- 

 spect to forestation the prevention of 

 erosion and floods, and other features 

 'of river control: "Do not permit your- 

 selves to enter into league with any of 

 these generalities ; if there is any one 

 element of our natural resources that 

 can wait to be conserved and take no 

 chance of being lessened in quantity or 

 bung controlled by a few individuals, it 

 is the water that. falls from the heavens." 

 Dr. McGee emphasized the commer- 

 cial importance of the great valley 

 drained by the Ohio. Comprising near- 

 ly 200,000 square miles in area, with a 

 population considerably above 10,000,- 

 ooo and a wealth approaching $25,000,- 

 000,000, it is comparable with old-world 

 nations, and might form a nation of 

 itself were it not the heart of a greater 

 nation. With a mineral production ap- 

 proaching and an agricultural produc- 

 tion exceeding $1,000,000,000 annually, 

 and a manufacturing production ap- 

 proaching $5,000,000,000, it must at 

 present rates pay something like $1,000,- 

 000,000 annually in transportation 

 charges to place its productions in the 

 markets of the world ; and reckoned on 

 any reasonable basis the excess of this 

 tax over what would be required if the 

 Ohio were navigable readily as the lake 

 route could hardly be less than $100,- 

 oooooo, certainly not less than the 

 $64,000,000 required for completing the 

 improvement under the approved plans 

 already under way for eighty-four 

 years, and likely to continue at the 



present rate forty or fifty years longer. 

 In other words, the Ohio Valley loses 

 each year in excessive transportation 

 charges more than the entire cost of 

 improving the river permanently. It 

 i> the business of the Inland Water- 

 ways Commission, not to take up en- 

 gineering projects under way, but to 

 ascertain why, after an expenditure of 

 hundred^ of millions of dollars in im- 

 proving the rivers, the boats are not 

 running on them, and then to point out 

 how the waste can be checked. In the 

 case of the Ohio the chief obstacles to 

 navigation have been: (i) commercial, 

 and (2) physical. The leading com- 

 mercial obstacle has been railway com- 

 petition, which is now diminishing; the 

 leading physical obstacles arise in the 

 increasing number and duration of 

 floods and low waters resulting from 

 settlement and deforestation, and the 

 concurrently increasing cost of adequate 

 landings and other terminal facilities, 

 though there has been little change in 

 flood-height, since the rise is normally 

 limited by the natural flood-plain. The 

 increase in flood frequency is shown by 

 a table extracted from data collected by 

 Mr. William L. Hall of the United 

 States Forest Service ; from which it 

 appears (i) that if the period covered 

 by records on the Ohio and its prin- 

 cipal tributaries be divided equally, the 

 number of floods was much greater dur- 

 ing the second half of each period than 

 during the first, and that in nearly every 

 case the duration of floods was also 



