AND AGRICULTURAL CAPABILITIES. 85 



these markets and the teeming West by thousands of miles and by many days, thus 

 effecting a double economy of time and cost of transportation. 



A glance at the map will readily demonstrate the fact, so little known heretofore, 

 that the distance from Chicago to Peusacola is only about 900 miles. It will also show 

 that from Pensacola the distance to Tampico is 900 miles; to Havana, 620 miles ; to 

 Matamoras, 800 miles ; to Vera Cruz, 950 miles ; to Hansacula, 950 miles. The last- 

 named place is the eastern port of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. 



No vessel has ever been driven ashore in any storm in the harbor of Pensacola, and 

 no gale has produced a freshet. The rivers emptying into the bay are clear and free 

 from alluvial deposit, and the depth of water on the anchorage ground, as well as on 

 the bar, remains unaltered since the earliest Spanish surveys. 



With the railway connection recently established and daily expanding, this mag- 

 nificent port becomes the most suitable outlet f r the commerce of the entire Missis- 

 sippi Valley. It has this great advantage over New Orleans, that it is close to the 

 Gulf, and not obstructed in its commerce by a shifting and treacherous bar, causing 

 costly delays to shipping, and often upsetting the fairest calculation for commercial 

 profits. The vast expenditure in towage up and down the river to which the New 

 Orleans shipping is subjected in reaching and leaving that inland port is saved in Pen- 

 sacola, and it is easy demonstrable that shippers in New Orleans can ship their car- 

 goes more cheaply from the port of Pensacola than from their own levee. Still greater 

 will be this economy when the canals now proposed and under survey shall connect 

 the Mississippi with Mobile Bay, Perdido Bay, and Pensacola Bay, permitting steamers 

 to bring their upland cargoes directly to Pensacola, and lay them alongside the sea- 

 going vessels. 



The splendid water-front of the city admits of running railway freight directly 

 down on the wharves, and to load vessels immediately from the cars. The elevated 

 bluff's on this water-front affords facilities for coal depots, from which vessels can be 

 supplied through shutes, thus saving greatly in expense of handling. 



Having thus briefly alluded to the physical features of the port, we will now ex- 

 amine the advantages of its relative position to other ports. 



Taking Chicago as the initial or starting point, as being equally distant from New 

 York and Pensacola, railroad trains destined to each of the cities would arrive at their 

 destination within the same time. The one arriving at New York would have traveled 

 over 900 miles, and would then be as far north as when it started from Chicago, 

 whereas the one arriving at Pensacola would have gone directly south 900 miles, thus 

 saving tbat number of miles between the initial point (Chicago) and any other point 

 south of Pensacola. This distance, to be balanced by transit to and from New York, 

 is equal to a gain of six days in favor of Pensacola. 



Take now the return cargoes, one^ia New York and the other via Peusacola, say cof- 

 fee, &c., from Havana, distant from Pensacola 6*20 miles. The one by way of Pensa- 

 cola would have reached its ultimate destination, and have been distributed, before 

 the other could possibly have reached New York. These remarks apply with equal 

 force to all the cities and towns lying along and in connection with this great national 

 artery of intercommunication, trade, and commerce. 



The Pensacola and Louisville Railroad line and its connections, unlike those lead- 

 ing to the Atlantic ports, bisect the parallels of latitude of the United States ; hence it 

 must collect and transmit the productions of these different latitudes, consisting of 

 wheat, flour, corn, pork, bacon, lard, cheese, bagging, rope, iron, lime, coal, and a great 

 variety of industrial products, such as furniture, clothing, machinery, implements, &c., 

 concentrating them all by one line at one single point of shipment, and giving that 

 point the same advantages to be offered to the shipping interests of the world that 

 are now afforded at the said Atlantic ports through a hundred different channels at a 

 vastly increased expense, both in time and money, and enabling ships desiring freights 

 to any part of the world to make such selections as their interests or exigencies may 

 require. 



