REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
69 
again resumed, but otherwise the hindrances are not serious. 
The shifting of sand-bars will always be an embarrassment to 
some extent, but continuous navigation would doubtless very 
materially diminish that objection. 
During the season of 1858, as appears by the report of the 
Superintendent of the Company, the navigation of the Fox 
opened on the 12th of April, and closed on the 27th of No¬ 
vember, and the actual trips of steamboats between Lake Win¬ 
nebago and Green Bay, alone, was 550. The amount of freight 
both ways was 18,705 tons; the number of passengers, 7,312. 
Transportation is of course much cheaper by this route than 
by rail, and during the past year the amount of grain from the 
fertile lands of the central counties, of lumber from the upper 
Wolf, of flour, &c., from the numerous mills at Neenah and 
Menasha, of wagon work and wooden wares from the factories 
at Appleton, Depere and other points, and of articles of various 
kinds from numerous points all along the route, must have been 
very great. 
Daniel C. Jenne, Superintendent of the Improvement, in the 
report referred to above, draws the following comparison be¬ 
tween it and the Erie Canal: 
“This channel of commerce, at some future day, must be to this State, to 
a great extent, what the Erie Canal has been to the State of New York; and 
whoever looks at it with an impartial eye, must come to this conclusion* 
The capacity of the Improvement will excel that of the enlarged canal. * 
* * Our locks are 160 feet by 35, while those of the canal are only 110 by 
18 feet. We can use boats 144 feet long by 34 feet wide, while they can use 
boats only 97 feet long and 17 J feet wide. We use steam power altogether, 
and can run our boats 5 to 10 miles an hour, while they use horse power, 
and average only 1| miles an hour.” 
In 1852, Hon. P. D. Andrews, in his report to Congress on 
Colonial and Lake Trade, says, in referring to this subject: 
“The junction of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers is, in fact, by this 
route, brought nearer to the lakes than St. Louis, and the transportation of 
goods being by an uninterrupted line of steamboat navigation, throughout 
the whole chain of lakes and across the State of Wisconsin, the trade to be 
one day transacted by this route will be enormous.” 
Again he remarks: 
“By this line there is an uninterrupted steam communication from Buffalo 
