THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 49 



thousand miles of precarious navigation permanent and certain. The same 

 reservoir that keeps back the excess of water from the tributary, keeps it back 

 also from the recipient stream ; the same supply that maintains the navigation 

 of the tributary, also improves that of the recipient ; and the same reservoir 

 that serves to maintain the navigation of both tributary and recipient, serves, of 

 necessity, to protect both from overflow. 



These things will be effected, not by main force, but by skill. The rain 

 gauge will indicate the approaching danger from the summits of the distant 

 mountains ; the telegraph will announce the fact at the flood-gates, and the 

 whole may thus be controlled by the previsions of science. In fact, the desired 

 eflfect can be produced by a few dams in the mountain gorges, and the constant 

 attention of some twenty men. 



or THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE OHIO. 



It has become fashionable to depreciate the importance of river navigation, 

 as a thing shortly to give way to the great improvements of the age — the rail- 

 road and locomotive. But if we reflect that the cost of transporting a barrel of 

 flour from Pittsburg to New Orleans, 2,050 miles, by steamboats, is now often 

 but 50 cents, while the lowest price at which that article can be conveyed by 

 railroads, with any profit, is three cents per ton per mile, or at the rate of ^6 per 

 barrel from Pittsburg to New Orleans, we shall better appreciate the importance 

 of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the agricultural and commercial interests 

 of the country. 



The present charge for a cabin passenger on the same route, with all the 

 comforts of a good boat, is but ^15, for a distance of more than 2000 miles — 

 and that sum covers his living by the way. The corresponding railroad charge 

 would be from ^60 to ^80, and the traveller would pay his board on the journey. 



The discussion of this subject is quite foreign to the object of the present 

 paper; yet, we ought never to forget, when considering the value of the western 

 rivers, that the great cities of Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, and 

 New Orleans, and scores of less note, all owe their origin, growth, and present 

 prosperity, to the river trade. And until such emporiums of trade are built up 

 and maintained by some artificial cause, we have no right to despise the chan- 

 nels that have created the wealth and commei'cial activity that is concentrated 

 in these. Yet, these great cities, prosperous as they are, and rapid as has been 

 their growth, are but isolated though prominent evidences of the general vigor 

 and prosperity of the vast region watered by these great streams. 



The Mississippi valley, with all its depth of soil, and forests of timber and 

 mineral riches, would be a comparative waste, if deprived of the great rivers 



