HYDROLOGY OF NEW YORK 



737 



the same and do the work at a profit. In the year ending June 

 30, 1897, the New York Central & Hudson River Railway Com- 

 pany paid a dividend on its stock of $4,000,000, besides carrying 

 $51,866.80 to the surplus account, whereas the canal, although all 

 tolls were removed in 1883, has still been unable to compete. 

 Among the chief reasons for this result, lack of organization of 

 canal transportation must be placed first. The perpetuation of 

 the idea that one advantage of the canals was that they were 

 common highways on which each man could carry his own 

 products to market has tended largely to produce this unsatis- 

 factory result. Thus far there has never been any systematic 

 organization for obtaining business for the canal. The boats are 

 owned by small proprietors, each operating from one to three or 

 four boats. When cargoes in hand are discharged at either 

 terminus, each owner solicits another cargo. The results are 

 delays, half cargoes, and consequent loss. . During the last few 

 years it has been only by the most rigid economy that the Erie 

 canal boatmen could live. On the other hand, the business of 

 soliciting freight for the railways is compactly organized and 

 every possible advantage taken of the situation. 



However unsatisfactory it may seem to the individual boat- 

 man, the future of effective transportation on the Erie canal de- 

 pends on the organization of large transportation companies 

 which conduct the business of carrying freight by canal on the 

 same business basis as adopted by railways. As to the equity of 

 the State furnishing and maintaining a waterway on which 

 transportation may be conducted by such corporations at a profit 

 the writer expresses no opinion further than to point out that 

 the official discussion of such a proposition by the State Engineer 

 and Surveyor in his annual report for the year ending September 

 30, 1896, may be taken to indicate that the day of the Erie canal as 

 a State waterway has passed. 



Cost and revenues of the New York State canal system. Table 

 no. 94 exhibits the total cost of construction, maintenance and 

 operation, and the total revenues from all sources of the several 

 canals of Xew York from their original inception to September 

 .30, 1892 : 



