CHAPTER 

 WATER AND COMMERCE 



166. Questions for Discussion. 1. What large cities of the United 



States are located on large bodies of water and at the mouths of large 

 streams? Why are they so located? 2. Why is it that early settle- 

 ments of the United States began on or near bodies of water? 3. Who 

 were the first settlers in your state, and by what routes did they 

 enter it? 4. What are the leading ship canals of the United States? 

 5. In what ways has the transportation of your state been influenced 

 by lakes, oceans, or rivers? 6. Is water transportation as important 

 or more important in your state now than it was a century ago? 

 7. Are there towns or communities in your state wholly dependent 

 upon water transportation? 8. What is the purpose of lighthouses? 

 of life buoys? 9. Why does the United States government and not 

 the state government take charge of lighthouse stations? 10. Of what 

 advantage or disadvantage would it be to Mississippi and Louisiana 

 to have the Chicago Drainage Canal and the stream into which it 

 empties made large enough and deep enough to permit large steamers 

 to pass through them ? 



167. Commercial importance of waterways. From the time 

 of most primitive civilization men have constantly been using 

 water craft as means of transportation. Much of man's inven- 

 tive genius has related to improvement of devices for travel 

 by water. Throughout the ages success or failure in contests 

 between nations has been affected largely by the relative 

 advancement of the contending nations in knowledge of sea 

 craft. In the greatest of wars, involving all the leading 

 nations, the race-old question of control .of the seas is still 

 a highly important one. 



Though commerce and other ocean travel between nations 

 is great, the industrial, economic, and social uses of inland 

 waterways are of even more direct significance. Since ocean 



