7 2 



The National Geographic Magazine 



the lake until he found at the Sault that 

 the great white beaver had built a dam, 

 and that he kicked away the dam and 

 opened up the intercourse between the 

 lower lakes and the great northwest is 

 not true. It was those sturdy men of 

 Michigan and the East who, foreseeing 

 the almost boundless possibilities of the 

 Northwest, broke the barrier with the 

 prosaic lock and canal which ever since 

 their grateful successors have improved 

 and enlarged till now through this gate- 

 way in the two-thirds of the year allotted 

 to our northern navigation there will 

 have passed in this season of 1907 almost, 

 if not quite, 60,000,000 tons of cargo — 

 nearly four times that through the Suez 

 and nearly six times the estimate for the 

 Panama in its tenth year of operation. 



The actual saving in freight has in the 

 past single year exceeded all the cost of 

 all the improvements beginning with the 

 first lock in 1855 and throughout the en- 

 tire chain of lakes. No man, woman, or 

 child in this country but has felt and en- 

 joyed its beneficent influence- and results, 

 while people in far-off lands have been 

 distinctly benefited. 



From Lake Superior comes this year 

 more than 40,000,000 of iron ore so rich 

 in the metal that it will produce more 

 than 80 per cent, of the output of pig iron 

 for the year in this country, which in turn 

 will equal or exceed the combined output 

 of Great Britain, Germany, and France ; 

 and the blessing to humanity, the good 

 hope, and the good cheer of it all is that 

 all the output of all the countries will 

 be needed to meet the advancing require- 

 ments of the world. This marvelous de- 

 velopment, so in its infancy, is due defi- 

 nitely and directly to the five inland seas. 



THE TOASTMASTER 



The next toast will be responded to by 

 Hon. J. Hampton Masr^, who is a little 

 bit handicapped in name^-but what he 

 knows about the water arteries on the 

 Atlantic Coast is not a gift. It was ac- 

 quired by long and patient study. 



THE ARTERIES TO THE ATLANTIC. BY HON. 

 J. HAMPTON MOORE 



In the boundaries of the fifteen states 

 along the Atlantic Seaboard the East re- 

 tains a population of thirty millions of 

 people. 



We have started in the East along the 

 Atlantic coast what promises to be a 

 great campaign, hand in hand with our 

 brother of the middle and extreme West, 

 for the development of the waterways of 

 this country. We do not yet quite under- 

 stand their enormous extent. We have 

 passed beyond the important question of 

 forestry because we have very few forests 

 left. They have been denuded for the 

 purposes of the W^est, and we have not 

 yet quite come to understand the impor- 

 tance of developing the waterways in the 

 East as some of you have been developing 

 them in the West. But recently, by 

 reason of the congestion of freight traffic, 

 by reason of the incapacity of the rail- 

 roads of the country to carry the product 

 of the mechanics of the country and of 

 the manufacturers of the country, not- 

 withstanding that they are pushing for- 

 ward with giant strides, and in my own 

 city of Philadelphia are turning out eight 

 and nine locomotives a day from one of 

 the great works alone ; notwithstanding 

 this great development in manufactures, 

 the hand of the artisan and of the laborer 

 and the mechanic, combined with the 

 energy and the capital of the manufac- 

 turer, is exceeding the carrying capacity 

 of the railroads and has brought us to 

 a realization of the importance of the 

 waterways as a means of carrying 

 freight, on competitive, or, if you please, 

 on relief lines. We have talked recently of 

 the development of an inland chain. It 

 is not altogether a new idea, but the 

 movement to work for it systematically 

 is of recent origin. 



We believe that for the purposes of 

 commerce, as well as for the purposes of 

 war, it would be important not alone to 

 great manufacturing and industrial in- 

 terests, not alone for the purpose of car- 

 rying commodities of heavy, bulky 



