22 INLAND NAVIGATION AND BARGE CONSTRUCTION 



Being born and raised in a shipyard, coming from a country whose very hold 

 upon the world's trade (its area only 1/250 part the size of the United States, 

 yet the fifth largest customer of this country and equal in its import and export 

 to 70 per cent of the total import and export of this country) was caused and made 

 possible only by its waterways (which are four times larger in miles than its rail 

 mileage) — having lived for many years in various countries and having had the 

 special privilege of living for ten years within the boundaries of the United States, 

 with free liberty to my imagination and energy, I have attempted to understand this 

 problem which I have placed before you. 



I therefore first selected, now four years ago, the problem of navigating what 

 I thought the most difficult route in this country. This was from New Orleans to 

 Tuscaloosa, Alabama. First from the Mississippi (at New Orleans), where the 

 very strength of the river accumulates to its maximum, the craft had to enter, 

 through a lock only 40 feet wide, a shallow canal, its entrance diagonal upon the 

 fast Mississippi. This canal was the Lake Borg^e Canal, crooked as the Lord of 

 Lower Regions, shallow as a pool, and sufficiently narrow to tempt you to jump 

 across it. From this one suddenly emerges into Lake Borgne, wide, choppy, poorly 

 protected against gulf waves, but even more shallow than the canal. From this 

 through the Mississippi Sound to Grand Pass. This is a pass cut away in hard 

 foundation through a shallow lake about a mile wide and 4 feet deep. In the 

 bottom of this is a conglomeration of clam shells, sand which in the sea water has 

 become as rock, and in this is haphazardly cut a channel with two bends and sharp 

 angles, 600 yards long, 80 feet wide, and 6^ feet deep. Across this is a side 

 current, and the channel is very poorly staked. From there on comes in Mobile 

 Bay, shallow, wide, fairly open to gulf waves. You emerge from this into the Ala- 

 bama River, and from there to Tombigbee, the Warrior, and Black Warrior. The 

 Black Warrior is a mountainous, diluvial stream running between a range of moun- 

 tains and so capricious that it has been known to change from a 6-foot river to one 

 60 feet deep within twenty-four hours. The Warrior is a little more civilized, but 

 still only partly so, and is kept better in tone by means of locks and dams which 

 are very difficult to negotiate. Rarely does one ever see more crooked rivers. At 

 Demopolis it is possible to leave the barge, go to the hotel and have lunch, and 

 walk to the other side of the town just in time to reach the barge which has ever 

 since been moving at eight miles an hour. At another place you can see a spot on 

 the river where you will be within two hours from that moment providing the 

 barge keeps steadily plugging away. The Tombigbee has the characteristics of 

 an alluvial stream, placing overnight sand bars just where you don't expect them. 

 The lower Alabama runs through swamps that may at a slight rise of the river be 

 flooded and look like a lake with the crooked river hidden underneath and with the 

 current never following the river, but running wildly across the meadows, and it 

 it up to you and the boat to find the channel and stay in it. To navigate these 

 routes with a 500-ton tow was considered very difficult, if not next to impossible, 

 unless you were one of the old-timers. 



