Honors for Amundsen 



73 



COAL FLOATED DOWN THE OHIO RIV^R TO CINCINNATI 



It cost one-third of a mill per ton per mile. The illustration shows a part of a single fleet 

 of barges containing 60,000 tons of coal. Photo from Will L. Finch, Cincinnati 



freight, but for the purpose of carrying 

 passengers too. 



We should have an inland chain of 

 waterways complete from Boston, on the 

 north, to Beaufort, North Carolina, on 

 the south, a distance of something over a 

 thousand miles, with opportunities to go 

 inland at least 150 miles ; these waterways 

 to be serviceable for canal barges, for 

 ships of commerce, and, if you please, 

 for ships of war. We have been think- 

 ing, as this question has arisen, of the iso- 

 lated long seaboard, of the property im- 

 periled, and the lives lost; we have been 

 thinking, too, of those silent vigils of the 

 day and night who constitute the life 

 guard of this country, and who patrol 

 every foot of the Atlantic seaboard, and 

 of our other seaboards while we are snug 

 at home through the wintry season. On 



the shores of Cape Cod alone, as statis- 

 tics recently handed to me show, there 

 were, during a period of twenty years fol- 

 lowing 1881, as many as one thousand 

 wrecks of vessels carrying precious car- 

 goes of human beings and of freight. 

 The development of inland waterways 

 gives courage against the dangers of the 

 Capes, of the shoals of Barnegat, and of 

 the terrors of Cape Hatteras, now almost 

 a graveyard of the seamen of the cen- 

 turies. 



We are hoping the happy time will 

 come when the North and the South will 

 be united upon the proposition to make 

 available for commerce and to make 

 available, if necessary, for purposes of 

 war, though there will be no war with 

 foreign powers while we are represented 

 bv foreign ambassadors such as sit about 



