24 THE MODERN MISSISSIPPI PROBLEM 



$25 and $30 per ton carriage was freely paid, and the price paid 

 by traders in Apia was 2? to 2f cents per pound in buying. 



But since 1878 seventeen years have elapsed. During all these 

 years thousands of trees then not planted have come to maturity 

 and are bearing, and thousands of those then in early bearing 

 have greatly increased their yield. As has been said, the crop 

 of last year (1894) was the largest in the history of the islands, 

 amounting in all, as stated, to 6,214 tons, and yet an- official re- 

 port made to the United States Government in 1878 gives the 

 export for that year as 6.775 tons, when in fact it could have been 

 not greatly in excess of half that quantity. The same report es- 

 timates the cotton crop at 2,300 bales. Such is a sample of the 

 unreliability of the statistics which have so misinformed the 

 world as to this group; upon such unstable foundations rest so 

 many of the roseate theories as to their future. 



THE MODERN MISSISSIPPI PROBLEM 

 By W J McGeb 



The great river of the continent has been the object of intelli- 

 gent inquiry for a centuiy, and of scientific investigation for half 

 as long. The earlier inquiries related chiefly to the river as a 

 medium for inland navigation, and the problem of interior water 

 transportation in America has wrought itself out largely on this 

 river with its principal tributaries. The history of the solution 

 of the problem is significant in its bearings on future industry 

 and commerce. 



The canoe of the Indian and the pirogue of the pioneer were 

 followed by the scows or " flatboats " which marked the intro- 

 duction of real commerce by means of the river ; and before the 

 introduction of steam the custom grew up of building " flatboats " 

 along the upper waters, lading them with coal, grain, and other 

 produce, floating them with the current to New Orleans, and 

 there abandoning them, while the shippers returned overland. 

 About the end of 1811 the first practical steamboat on the waters 

 embouching through the Mississippi suffered disaster during its 

 first voyage in consequence of the New Madrid earthquake ; but 

 the utilization of steam power proceeded rapidly, and within a few 

 years steam navigation was established and the river became a 

 route for numberless craft carrying freight and passengers against 



