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The National Geographic Magazine 



Among other things he says : 

 "Recognizing the importance of cheap 

 transport and of an alternative transport 

 system which would bring with it whole- 

 some competition, Germany has steadily 

 extended, enlarged, and improved her 

 waterways, both natural and artificial, 

 and keeps on extending and improving 

 them year by year; and if a man would 

 devote some years solely to the study of 

 German waterways and make the neces- 

 sarjr but very extensive and exceedingly 

 laborious calculations, he would probably 

 be able to prove that German3''s indus- 

 trial success is due chiefly to cheap trans- 

 port and the wise development of her 

 waterways." 



France, Holland, and Belgium have 

 improved their waterways quite as thor- 

 oughly as Germany. It is said that 

 freight can be moved from practically 

 any part of these four countries, without 

 breaking bulk, to any other part. 



COST AND PROBLEMS TO BE MET 



The preceding quotations from Mr 

 Hill and Representative JR.ansdell, de- 

 scribing the situation in the Mississippi 

 Valley, explain why the people demand 

 a deep waterway from the Gulf to the 

 Great Lakes, to be followed by deepen- 

 ing to a commercial depth all the prin- 

 cipal tributaries of the Mississippi. No 

 estimate of the cost of the deep water- 

 way has yet been prepared, but it will 

 considerably exceed $100,000,000. A 

 board of government engineers in 1904 

 reported that to deepen the Mississippi 

 and Illinois Rivers from Saint Louis to 

 the terminal of the Chicago Drainage 

 Canal would cost $31,000,000. This part 

 of the project is comparatively simple. 

 The route below Saint Louis, however, 

 presents many difficult problems. The 

 channel below Saint Louis is supposed 

 to have a depth of 8 to 9 feet, but it is 

 constantly shifting. The river frequently 

 deposits as much as 15 feet of silt in 

 one place in a single year, and then may 

 carry it away in a week or less. Dredg- 

 ing in such places is of course useless. 

 Competent geologists have estimated that 

 the Mississippi River brings down 400,- 



000,000 tons of sediment each year. 

 From Cairo to the Gulf the river flows 

 in a channel on the summit of a ridge 

 which it has built up by its deposits. 

 In this section vast and expensive levees 

 keep the river from overflowing its banks 

 and flooding the lower lands adjacent. 



But while the difficulties of construct- 

 ing a deep waterway surpass the prob- 

 lems presented by the Panama Canal, 

 they are probably not insurmountable. 



Many millions of dollars have already 

 been expended on the Mississippi by state 

 and national governments, but the results 

 of the expenditure have been unsatis- 

 factory, as no continuous and definite 

 plan has been pursued, the national ap- 

 propriations being irregular and uncer- 

 tain. The last Congress made an appro- 

 priation for a careful examination and 

 report by the Mississippi River Commis- 

 sion of the feasibility and cost of a deep 

 waterway from the Gulf to Saint Louis. 

 It is to be hoped that the Commission will 

 be able to submit a comprehensive and 

 practicable scheme, for, as President 

 Roosevelt says in a recent address : 



"The valley of the Mississippi is po- 

 litically and commercially more impor- 

 tant than any other valley on the face 

 of the globe. Here, more than anywhere 

 else, will be determined the future of 

 the United States, and, indeed, of the 

 whole western world ; and the type of 

 civilization reached in this mighty valley, 

 in this vast stretch of country lying be- 

 tween the Alleghenies and the Rockies, 

 the Great Lakes and the Gulf, will largely 

 fix the type of civilization for the whole, 

 western hemisphere." 



TRAFFIC ON THE MISSISSIPPI 



Forty years ago the Mississippi and 

 its tributaries were used for traffic much 

 more than they are today. This traffic 

 reached its height about 1870. During 

 those years many handsome steamers of 

 small draught plied up and down the 

 river, affording a popular route to travel- 

 ers from city to city. In the years fol- 

 lowing railways were built very rapidlv, 

 and as there was not enough business for 

 both river and railway, the river com- 



