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 The Mississippi and its forty, 
 four navigable tributaries. 
 
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 THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 AND ITS l''Oi:TY-F()Uii 
 
 NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES 
 
 A DESCRIPTIVE, COMMERCIAL, AND STATISTICAL REVIEW, 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH THREE DIAGRAMS. 
 
 ALEX. D, ANDERSON, 
 
 Author of "Mexico from the Material Stand-point." 
 
 July 2, 1890. — OrdoreU to be printed hj the United States .Senate. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 18 9 0.
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 AND ITS FORTY-FOUR 
 
 NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES 
 
 A DESCRIPTIVE, COMMERCIAL, AND STATISTICAL REVIEW, 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH THREE DIAGRAMS. 
 
 ALEX. D. AIs'DERSON, 
 
 Author of '^Mexico from the Material Stand-point." 
 
 July 2, 1890. — Ordered to be printed by the Uuited States Senate. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1890.
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 xMAP OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 I. Historical notes. 
 II. Descriptive notes. 
 
 Extent as <a drainage system. 
 Extent as commercial highways. 
 Valley States and Territories. 
 Iute^na^ supplements. 
 Interocean supplements. 
 
 III. Economical features. 
 Correct location. 
 Connection of opposite climates. 
 Construction by nature. 
 Commercial value. 
 
 Cost of repairs. 
 Commercial capacity. 
 Cheap transportation. 
 
 IV. Products op the States inter- 
 
 sected. 
 Contrast with those of the United 
 States. 
 V. Internal commerce of the States 
 intersected. 
 Estimate of its value. 
 How transported. 
 
 Increasing demand for transportation. 
 VI. Alluvial lands. 
 
 Area and present condition. 
 Present value. 
 Future value if protected. 
 Productive capacity. 
 
 Contrast with the Netherlands. 
 
 The qne.-tiou of protection. 
 VII. Destructive floods. 
 
 Floods of 1868 and 1871. 
 
 Flood of 1874. 
 
 Flood of 1881. 
 
 Flood of 1882. 
 
 Flood of 1883. 
 VIII. National features. 
 
 National in extent. 
 
 National in law. 
 
 National in benefits. 
 
 National in damage. 
 
 National in politics. 
 
 Opinions of national statesmen. 
 IX. International features. 
 
 American countries at the South — 
 diagrams of tirst and second cen- 
 tury. 
 
 Our foreign commerce of the first 
 century. 
 
 Our foreign commerce of the second 
 century. 
 Appendix. 
 
 Act creating the Commission. 
 
 River distances. 
 
 List of authorities. 
 
 List of popular publications. 
 
 List of official documents. 
 
 471885
 
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 7201 face p. 5
 
 I.-HISTORICAL NOTES. 
 
 In the early days of European discoveries and rivalries in the Missis- 
 sippi Valley its comprehensive river system played a prominent part on 
 the stage of public affairs. The discovery of the river, in 1541, by De 
 Soto and his Spanish troops, was about a century later followed by ex- 
 plorations by the French under the lead of Marquette, Joliet, La Salle, 
 and others, who entered the valley from the north. La Salle, during 
 the years 1679-'83, explored the river throughout its whole length, took 
 possession of the great valley in the name of France, and called it Louis- 
 iana in honor of his King, Louis XIV. Then resulted grand schemes 
 for developing the resources of the valley, which a French writer char- 
 acterized as "the regions watered by the Mississippi, immense unknown 
 virgin solitudes which the imagination filled with riches." One Crozat, 
 in 1712, secured from the King a charter giving him almost imperial 
 control of the commerce of the whole Mississippi Valley. There was at 
 that date no European rival to dispute French domination, for the 
 English of New England and the other Atlantic colonies had not ex- 
 tended their settlements westward across the Alleghanies, and the 
 Spanish inhabitants of New Spain or Mexico had not pushed their con- 
 quest farther north than New Mexico. Crozat's trading privileges cov- 
 ered an area many times as large as all France, and as fertile as any on 
 the face of the earth. But he was unequal to the opportunity, and, fail- 
 ing in his efforts, soon surrendered the charter. 
 
 John Law, a Scotchman, at first a gambler, and subsequently a bold, 
 visionary, but brilliant financier, succeeded Crozat in the privileges of 
 this grand scheme, and secured from the successor of Louis XIV a mo- 
 nopoly of the trade and development of the French possessions in the 
 valley. In order to carry out his wild enterprise he organized a colos- 
 sal stock company, called '-The Western Company," but more gener- 
 ally known in history as "The Mississippi Bubble." According to the 
 historian Monette " it was vested with the exclusive privilege of the en- 
 tire commerce of Louisiana and New France, and with authority to 
 enforce its rights. It was authorized to monopolize the trade of all the 
 colonies in the provinces, and of all the Indian tribes within the limits 
 of that extensive region, even to the remotest source of every stream 
 tributary in any wise to the Mississippi." So skillful and daring were 
 his manipulations that he bewitched the French people with the fasci- 
 nations of stock gambling. The excitement in Paris is thus described 
 by Thiers : 
 
 It was no longer the professional speculators and creditors of the Government who 
 frequented the rue Quincarapois; all classes of society mingled there, cherishing the 
 same illusions — noblemen famous on the field of battle, distinguished in the Govern- 
 ment, churchmen, traders, quiet citizens, servants whom their suddenly acquired 
 fortune had filled with the hope of rivaling their masters. * * » 
 
 The rue Quincampoix was called the Mississippi. * * * 
 
 The month of December was the time of the greatest infatuation. Jhe shares ended 
 by rising to eighteen and twenty thousand francs — thirty-six and forty times the first 
 price. 
 
 At the price which they bad attained the six hundred thousand shares represented 
 a capital of ten or twelve billions of francs.
 
 6 THE Mls.sissil'Pl AISD lift NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 Bnt the bubble soou burst and its explosion upset the fiuauces of the 
 •whole Kiugdom. 
 
 Some years later, in 1745, a French engineer named Deverges made 
 a report to his Government in favor of improving the mouth of the 
 Mississippi, and stated that the bars there existingwere a serious iujury 
 to'con)merce. 
 
 i3ut France met with too powerful rivalry in the valley, and in 17G2 
 and 1703, after a supremacy of nearly a hundred years, was crowded 
 out by the English Irom the Atlantic colonies and the Spaniards from 
 the southwest, the Mississippi Eiver forming the dividing line between 
 the regions thus acquired by those two nations. 
 
 The Spanish officials, for the purpose of promoting colonization, and 
 to aid in establishing trading postson the Mississippi, Missouri, Arkan- 
 sas, Eed, and other rivers in the western half of the vallej^, granted to 
 certain individuals, pioneers, and settlers, large tracts of land. The.N 
 made little progress, however, in peopling their new territory. 
 
 But whatever progress was made under the successive supremacies 
 of France and Spain, the Mississippi and its navigable tributaries sup- 
 plied the onl3' highways of communication and commerce. 
 
 In the jear 1800, soon after Napoleon I became the civil ruler of 
 France, he sought to add to the commercial glory of his country by re- 
 acquiring the territory resting upon the Mississippi which his prede- 
 cessors had parted with in 1 7G3. 
 
 To quote the language of a French historian : 
 
 The cession that France made of Louisiana to Spain in 1763 had been considered in 
 all our maritime and commercial cities as impolitic and injurious to the interests of 
 our navigation, as well as to the French West Indies, and it was very generally wished 
 that an opportunity might occur of recovering that colony. One of the first cares of 
 Bonaparte was to renew with the court of Madrid a negotiation on that subject. 
 
 He succeeded in these negotiations, and by the secret treaty of St. 
 lldefouso, in 1800, French domination was once more established over 
 the great river. 
 
 Two years later the commerce of the river had grown to large pro- 
 portions. Says Marbois, of that period : " No rivers of Europe are more 
 frequented than the Mississippi and tributaries." A substantially cor- 
 rect idea of their patronage may be obtained from the record of the for- 
 eign commerce from the mouth of the Mississippi, for nearly all of the 
 commodities collected there for export had first floated down the river. 
 Of the year 1802, says Martin in his historj^ of Louisiana: 
 
 There sailed from the Mississippi — 
 
 American vessels. 
 Spanisli vessels... 
 Frencli vessels... 
 
 Total 
 
 No. Tous. 
 
 158 21, 383 
 
 104 0,753 
 
 3 105 
 
 •J65 I 31, 241 
 
 The tonnage of vessels that went in ballast, not that of public armed ones, is not 
 included. The latter took oft' masts, yards, spars, and naval stores. 
 
 This growing commercial movement down the river of the ])roducts 
 of the valley was checked by a foolish or arbitrary order issued on the 
 ]6th of October, 1802, by the Intendant Morales, "suspending the right 
 of dei)Osit" at the i>ort of New Orleans. 
 
 Marbois well illustrates the intense indignation at this order on the
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 7 
 
 part of the Western people by attributing to them the following lan- 
 guage: 
 
 Tbo Mississippi is ours by the law of nature ; it belongs to us by our numbers, and 
 by the labor which we have bestowed on those spots which before our arrival were 
 desert and barren. Our innumerable rivers swell it and flow with it into the Gulf 
 Sea. Its mouth is the only issue which nature has given to our waters, and we wish 
 to use it for our vessels. No power in the world shall deprive us of this right. 
 
 Of Morales' order James Madison, then Secretary of State, wrote to 
 the official representative of the United States at the court of Spain: 
 
 You are aware of the sensibility of our Western citizens to such an occurrence. 
 This sensibility is justified by the interest thej-^ have at stake. The Mississippi to 
 them is everything. It is the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and all the navi- 
 gable rivers of the Atlantic States formed into one stream. 
 
 At this time Thomas Jefferson was President, and in view of the un- 
 easiness of the Western settlers, he hastened to send to France a special 
 embassador to negotiate for the ]>urchase of Louisiana Territory. The 
 opportunity was a favorable one, for France was then in danger of a 
 conflict with Great Britain. The latter country had become alarmed at 
 and jealous of Bonaparte's commercial conquests, and he, apprehending 
 war and fearing that he could not hold Louisiana, had about determined 
 to do the next best thing — dispose of it to one of England's rivals. 
 
 Marbois, the historian of Louisiana, from whom we have above quoted, 
 was chosen by Napoleon to represent France in the negotiations with 
 the representative of the United States sent by Jefferson. His account 
 of the cession — the consultation between Napoleon and his ministers — 
 and of his remarks and motives, forms one of the most instructive and 
 interesting chapters of modern history. Napoleon foreshadowed his 
 action by the following remark to one of his counselors: 
 
 To emancipate nations from the commercial tyranny of England it is necessary to 
 balance her influence by a maritime power that may one day become her rival ; that 
 power is the United States. The English aspire to dispose of all the riches of the 
 world. I shall be useful to the whole universe if I can prevent their ruling America 
 as they rule Asia. 
 
 In a subsequent conversation with two of his ministers, on the 10th of 
 April, 1803, on the subject of the proposed cession, he said in speaking 
 of England: "They shall not have the Mississippi which they covet." 
 
 In accordance with this conclusion, on the 30th day of the same 
 month, the sale was made to the United States. When informed that 
 his instructions had been carried out and the treaty consummated, he 
 remarked: 
 
 This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States, and 
 I have just given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her 
 pride. 
 
 Under the stimulating influence of American enterprise the commerce 
 of the valley rapidly developed. In 1812 it entered upon a new era of 
 progress by the introduction for the first time upon the waters of the 
 Mississippi of steam transportation. 
 
 The river trade then grew from year to year, until the total domes- 
 tic exports of its sole outlet at the sea-board — the port of New Or- 
 leans — had during the fiscal year 1855-'56 reached the value of over 
 $80,000,000. Its prestige was then eclipsed by railways, the first line 
 reaching the Upper Mississippi in 1854, and the second the Lower Mis- 
 sissippi, at Saint Lou's, in 1857. Says Poor: 
 
 The line first opened in this State from Chicago to the Mississippi was the Chicago 
 and Rock Island, completed in February, 1854. The completion of this road extended
 
 8 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 the railway system of the country to the Mississippi, up to this time the great route 
 of commerce of the interior. This work, iu counectiou with the numerous other 
 lines since opened, has almost wholly diverted this commerce from what may be 
 termed its natural to artificial channels, so that no considerable portion of it now 
 floats down the river to Now Orleans. 
 
 The correctness of this assertion may be seen by reference to the sta- 
 tistics of the total domestic exports of New Orleans during the year 
 ending June 30, 1879. They were $63,794,000 in value, or $16,000,000 
 less than in 1856, when the rivalry with railways began. 
 
 But since 1879 the river has entered upon a new and important era. 
 The successful completion of the jetties by Capt. James B. Eads in- 
 augurated a new era of river commerce and regained for it some of its 
 lost prestige. 
 
 Another step of great importance to the welfare of the Mississippi 
 was taken about the same time. The control of its improvement was 
 transferred by Congress to a board of skilled engineers known as the 
 Mississippi Elver Commission. The various conflicting theories of im- 
 provement which have for years past done much to defeat the grand 
 consummation desired will now be adjusted in a scientific and business- 
 like manner. 
 
 Again, the rapidly growing popular demand throughout the United 
 States for more intimate commercial relations with Mexico and the sev- 
 eral sister nations of Central and South America, which lie opposite 
 the mouth of this great river system, is stimulating the long-neglected 
 longitudinal trade and thereby creating a new demand for transporta- 
 tion on the longitudinal water-ways which comprise the Mississippi 
 and its tributaries. 
 
 The practical extension of the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean by 
 the coming opening of an interoceau canal or ship railway, across the 
 Isthmus of Central America or Tehuantepec, is still another commer- 
 cial departure which will soon make a new demand for water trans- 
 portation up and down the Mississippi Yalley. 
 
 In view of this tendency of American commerce and transportation 
 a general or bird's eye view of the Mississippi, its tributaries, supple- 
 ments, and national and international features will, it is thought, be of 
 value to the producers and consumers who are so deeply interested in 
 the subject of cheap transportation between the great interior and the 
 sea-board.
 
 II.-DESCRIPTIVE NOTES. 
 
 EXTENT AS A DRAINAGE SYSTEM. 
 
 The Mississippi and tributaries, considered as a drainage system, ex- 
 tend nearly the whole length of the United States, from Canada to the 
 Gulf, and across more than half its width, or from the summit of the 
 Eocky Mountains to that of the Alleghanies. 
 
 The Mississippi basin, in its strict sense, comprises the following 
 minor basins or subdivisions: 
 
 Basin. 
 
 Square miles. 
 
 Basin. 
 
 Square miles. 
 
 
 65, 646 
 
 92,721 
 
 184, 742 
 
 527,690 
 
 
 179, 635 
 207, 111 
 
 Red 
 
 Ohio 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 
 1. 257, 545 
 
 
 
 
 Of the many divisions and subdivisions of the river two hundred and 
 forty are considered of sufficient importance to be named upon the 
 river map in Walker's Statistical Atlas of the United States. They 
 may be classified as follows : 
 
 Eed and tributaries 17 
 
 Arkansas and tributaries 28 
 
 Missouri and tributaries 76 
 
 Ohio and tributaries 58 
 
 Others not included in the above classification 61 
 
 Total 240 
 
 Probably as many more streams of minor importance are omitted 
 from the map. 
 
 EXTENT AS COMMERCIAL HIGHWAYS. 
 
 Considered from a commercial stand-point the MississijDpi and tribu- 
 taries intersect or border twenty-one States and Territories, as follows : 
 
 Alabama. 
 
 Arkansas. 
 
 Dakota Territory. 
 
 Illinois. 
 
 Indiana. 
 
 Indian Territory. 
 
 Iowa. 
 
 Kansas. 
 
 Kentucky. 
 
 Louisiana. 
 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Mississippi. 
 
 Missouri. 
 
 Montana Territory. 
 
 Nebraska. 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 Tennessee. 
 
 Texas. 
 
 West Virginia. 
 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 Steamers can now transport freight in unbroken bulk from St. An- 
 thony's Falls to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of 2,161 miles, and from 
 Pittsburgh to Fort Benton, Mont., 4,333 miles. 
 
 Lighter craft can ascend the Missouri to Great Falls, near where that 
 river leaves the Eocky Mountains. 
 
 9
 
 10 
 
 TlIK Ml.sSliiSiri'l AM) Jis .N.W l(.>.\l5Lh IKIHUTAKILS. 
 
 The outline map precediiif;- Chapter 1 has beeu prepared to illustrate 
 the comprehensive nature of this great river system. Its Briareau 
 arms reach out in all directions and embrace nearly the whole United 
 States. 
 
 The cross-mark on each stream indicates the head of navigation, and 
 in nearly every instance continuous navigation. 
 
 The lollowiiig table represents the mileage of the navigable portion 
 of each above its month : 
 
 It'ame of river. 
 
 I Miles. 
 
 Missuuvi 3, 
 
 Mississippi 2, 
 
 Ohio 1, 
 
 Red 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 White 
 
 TcniK'ssee . . . 
 
 Ciiiuberland 
 
 Yellowstono 
 
 Onrichita 
 
 Wabash 
 
 Osase 
 
 Minnesota 
 
 i;(i:ul" 
 
 Suntiower 
 
 Illinois 
 
 Yazoo . . . 
 
 Bartholmew 
 
 Black (Arkansas) . 
 
 Green 
 
 St. Francis 
 
 Tallahatchie 
 
 Wisconsin 
 
 Name of river. Miles. 
 
 Cache (Arlcausiis) > 160 
 
 Macon 130 
 
 Allejrbeny 1 123 
 
 Deei Creek ; 116 
 
 Monougahela 110 
 
 Kentucky , 105 
 
 Kenawha | 94 
 
 Muskingum i 9-1 
 
 Ten.sas I 92 
 
 Iowa 80 
 
 Current ' 80 
 
 Big Hatchie V.t 
 
 Eock 6^ 
 
 Black (Louisiana) 6; 
 
 Chippewa J 57 
 
 St. Cioix j 55 
 
 Big Horn 50 
 
 Clinch 50 
 
 Little Red .. 49 
 
 Big Cvpvess and Lake 44 
 
 Big Black 35 
 
 Dauchite 33 
 
 The total present navigation of these rivers, 45 in all, is 16,090 miles — 
 more than four times the length of the oceau line from New York to 
 Liverpool, and more than four times tiie distance by rail across the 
 continent from Xew York to San Francisco. 
 
 But it will be largely increased in the near future, when certain pro- 
 posed and needed improvements are made on some of the upper streams. 
 The possibilities in this respect are well illustrated by the condition of 
 the Upper Mississippi. Of it the Select Committee of the United States 
 Senate on Transportation Routes to the Sea-board said, in their report 
 in ]874: 
 
 The Mi.ssis.sippi has for several years beeu successfully uavigatetl by steam-boats 
 from the falls of St. Authouy to Sauk Rapids, a distance of 78 miles. Duriug uavi- 
 gable seasons small steam-boats are also ruu on the various reaches of tlie river from 
 Minneapolis to Leech Lake, the entire distance being about 675 miles. 
 
 It is safe to assert that by improving .several tributaries the total 
 navigation may be extended at least 1,000 miles. 
 
 VALLEY STATES AND TERRITORIES. 
 
 As we will have occasion, upon subsequent images, to give statistics 
 in regard to the si.xteen valley States and Territories, and also the 
 twenty-one States and Territories intersected by the navigable portions 
 of this great river system, it may be well to detine the lerin valley. It 
 comprises the following States and Territories : 
 
 Arkansas. 
 
 Dakota. 
 
 Illinois. 
 
 Indianu. 
 
 Indian Territory. 
 
 Iowa. 
 
 Kansas. 
 
 Kentucky. 
 
 Louisiana. 
 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Mississippi. 
 
 Missouri. 
 
 Ni'braska. 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 Tennessee. 
 
 Wisoonaiu.
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 11 
 
 Strictly speakiug, a fractioual part of a few of these States might be 
 omitted from, and portions of other States inclnded in, the term valley; 
 but as the statistics which we will have occasion to review are arranged 
 by States we will not attempt to include those fractioual i)arts, but will 
 deal simply with facts relating to whole States. 
 
 INTERNAL SUPPLEMENTS. 
 
 Extensive and comprehensive as are the water-ways of the valley, 
 they are not sufficient to satisfy the popular and commercial demand 
 for inland water transportation. Many artificial extensions have already 
 been constructed, and more are projected or proposed. 
 
 The waters of the Mississippi have a present connection with the 
 Great Lakes by means of a canal from the Wisconsin River to Fox 
 Eiver and Lake Michigan, by a canal from the Wabash River to Lake 
 Erie at Toledo, a canal from the Ohio Kiver at Cincinnati to Lake Erie 
 at Toledo, and a canal from the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio, to 
 Lake Erie at Cleveland — all of which canals are in turn supplemented 
 by the water route via the Lakes, Erie Canal, and Hudson River to New 
 York City, thereby uniting the Mississippi with the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 These four canals, and consequently the Mississippi, have another 
 connection with the Atlantic by way of the Lakes, Wellaud Canal, around 
 Niagara Falls, and the St. Lawrence River, for the Canadian Govern- 
 ment at a great cost comi3leted the necessary connecting link. 
 
 It is also proposed to unite the Mississippi with Lake Michigan by 
 means of a canal extending from Davenport, Iowa, to Hennepin, on the 
 Illinois River, and thence to Chicago. 
 
 Again it is proposed that the United States utilize the St. Lawrence 
 route by extending it to New York City by way of Lake Champlain 
 and Hudson River. Such a connection has already been favorably 
 reported by the Select Committee of the United States Senate on 
 Transportation Routes to the Sea-board. A noticeable feature of this 
 route is the connection in this way of the Mississippi Valley with a 
 New England State, Vermont. 
 
 It is also proposed to unite the waters of the Mississippi and the 
 Lakes with the Atlantic at Baltimore by means of a canal from the ex- 
 isting Erie Canal, via Seneca Lake, to an upper tributary of the Sus- 
 quehanna, and thence to Chesapeake Bay. 
 
 Again, a direct connection of the Mississippi with the Atlantic at 
 Baltimore, without use of the Lakes, is proposed by way of the Alleghany 
 River from Pittsburgh, the Kiskiminetas and Conemaugh Rivers, thence 
 to the Juniata Valley and the Susquehanna, and down that river to 
 Chesapeake Bay. A similar connection with Philadelphia is proposed 
 by the same route from Pittsburgh to the Susquehanna, and thence 
 across to Delaware Bay. 
 
 Located a little farther south is the line of the projected and partially 
 constructed Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, intended to connect the Atlan- 
 tic with the West by way of the Potomac, Youghiogheny, Monongahela, 
 and Ohio Rivers. The line is already completed from Washington to 
 Cumberland. It was earnestly advocated by President Washington, 
 who wished in this way to strengthen the political and commercial ties 
 between the Atlantic States and the West. 
 
 Next is the proposed James River and Kanawha Canal, to connect 
 the Atlantic with the Mississippi Valley by way of the James, Green- 
 brier, New, Kanawha, and Ohio Rivers. This route is already con- 
 structed from Richmond to Buchanan, Va., a distance of 197 miles. It
 
 12 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 was recently recomiueuded by the said Senate Committee on Transpor- 
 tation Eontes. 
 
 Still further south it is proposed to supplement the Mississippi by 
 means of a water line from the Tennessee Kiver, at Gunters ville, East 
 Tennessee, via Short Creek, Wills Creek, Coosa, Etowah, and Ocniulgee 
 Kivers, and thence along the coast to Savannah, Ga. This route was 
 also recommended by the Senate Committee on Transportation Koutes. 
 
 In the far West it is proposed to unite the waters of the Upper Mis- 
 souri and Columbia Rivers, thereby connecting the Mississippi Valley 
 with the Pacific Ocean. A bill to provide for a survey and report upon 
 this route has recently been introduced in Congress. 
 
 These various existing and proposed supplements may be seen by a 
 reference to the map preceding Chapter I. 
 
 INTER-OCEAN SUPPLEMENTS. 
 
 To consummate the new commercial movement down the river and 
 direct trade relations with the foreign countries around the Atlantic and 
 Pacific Oceans, two other great works are needed — inter-ocean transit 
 across I^lorida on the one side and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec on the 
 other. The natural relations of both enterprises to the Mississippi are 
 most intimate. Each may appropriately be termed a supplement or 
 extension of the river. ^ 
 
 The proposed Florida ship-canal will shorten the distance between 
 New Orleans and Xew York 571 statute miles each way, or 1,142 on the 
 round trip. It will shorten the voyage between New Orleans and Liv- 
 erpool 473 statute miles each way, or 94G on the round trip. 
 
 The great saving of distance via this route, together with its ad- 
 vantages in point of safety over the present hazardous route around 
 the southern extremity of Florida, will render it a material aid to the 
 Mississippi in preventing the acquisition by Canada of the grain trans- 
 portation business between the valley and Liverpool. 
 
 Ou the 18th of December, 1880, Mexico entered into a contract with 
 Capt. James B. Eads for the construction of a ship-railway across the 
 Isthmus of Tehuanteiiec. 
 
 This inter-ocean line, when completed, will give the Gulf of Mexico 
 and its surroundings their first direct commercial outlet to the Pacific 
 Ocean and its surrounding countries, with the following saving of dis- 
 tances over the existing railway at Panama and the existing steam-ship 
 route around Cape Horn : 
 
 Mouth of the Mississippi to Hong-Kong : Statute miles. 
 
 Via Isthnins of Tehuantepec (great circle) 10, 092 
 
 Via Isthmus of Panama (great circle) 11,'J12 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (one way) I,d20 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (rounrl trij)) 3,640 
 
 Mouth of the Mississippi to Hong Koug: 
 
 Via Isthmus of Tehuantepec (great circle) 10,092 
 
 Via Cape Horn (great circle) 20,594 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (one way) 10, r)02 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (round trip) 21,004 
 
 Mouth of the Mississippi to Yokoham.a: 
 
 Via Isthmus of Teiiuantepec (great circle) 8, 549 
 
 Via Isthmus of Panama (great circle) 10,369 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (one way) 1, fts20 
 
 Saving via Teli nan tepee (round trip) 3,640 
 
 Mouth of tlie Mississipi)! to Yokohama: 
 
 Via Isthmus of Tehnanteptic (great circle ) 8,549 
 
 Via Cape Horn (great circle) 20, Old 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (one way) 11.469 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (round trip) 22, 938
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 13 
 
 Statute miles. 
 
 Mouth of the Mississippi to Sydney, Australia: 
 
 Via Isthmus of Tehuautepec (great circle) 9, 188 
 
 Via Isthmus of Panama (great circle) 10, 341 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (one way) 1, 153 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (round trip) 2,306 
 
 Mouth of the Mississippi to Sydney, Australia: 
 
 Via Isthmus of Tehuantepec (great circle) 9, 188 
 
 Via Cape Horn (great circle) 14, 975 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (one way) 5,787 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (round trip) 11,574 
 
 Mouth of the Mississippi to San Francisco : 
 
 Via Isthmus of Tehuantepec 3,466 
 
 Via Isthmus of Panama 5,302 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (one way) 1,836 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (round trip) 3,672 
 
 Mouth of the Mississippi to San Francisco: 
 
 Via Isthmus of Tehuantepec 3,466 
 
 Via Cape Horn 15,908 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (one way) 12,442 
 
 Saving via Tehuantepec (round trip) 24, 884
 
 III. -ECONOMICAL FEATURES. 
 
 CORRECT LOCATION. 
 
 Kailroads and other highways intended for the acconiiuodation of com- 
 merce fall far short of snccess when unwisely located. Too many have 
 violated the laws of political economy in this respect, and have proved 
 ruinous to their stockholders and almost useless to the public. A nation 
 may sometimes, for political or military purposes, construct a road 
 through a desert or mountainous and unproductive region ; but neces- 
 sity, instead of economy, is the theory on which it acts. Commerce is 
 governed by other considerations. It seeks that which is both useful 
 and profitable. 
 
 The Mississippi and tributaries intersect the most fertile valley of the 
 whole world — the productive center of this continent. It supplies trans- 
 portation where most needed, and is, therefore, most wisely and eco- 
 nomically located. 
 
 CONNECTION OF OPPOSITE CLIMATES. 
 
 Railways in the past have given undue attention to commercial ex- 
 changes along parallels of latitude, between similar climates, with sim- 
 ilar products and characteristics. The tendency of the whole Mississippi 
 Eiver system is the other way, from north to south, one climate to an- 
 other, regions which are the reverse and complement of each other in 
 supply and demand. In this respect also it observes a fundamental 
 law of trade. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION BY NATURE. 
 
 The next important consideration in a transportation line is the cost 
 of construction. Kailway stockholders expect dividends, and if their 
 roads be extravagantly built the burden is soon shifted to the shoul- 
 ders of the producer and consumer along the way in the shape of ex- 
 cessive rates. Even if rightly located and cheaply built, railroads 
 represent enormous capital when contrasted with rivers made by nature 
 at no expense to the people. 
 
 The 10,090 miles of navigable water-ways which constitute the com- 
 mercial part of the Mississippi River system were constructed and pre- 
 sented by nature at no cost to the people. But they are just as valuable 
 as if artificially built. They are the nation's property, and should, like 
 its military roads, its custom-houses, post-offices, and other property, be 
 kept in repair. Congress is the board of management for this purpose, 
 and should, in guarding the people's transportation property, exercise 
 the f?ame skill and observe the same laws of economy as railway directors 
 who are chosen to manage the railway lines owned by individual stock- 
 holders. 
 
 14
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 15 
 
 C0M3IERCIAL VALUE. 
 
 There were, diiriug the census year 1880, 87,782 miles of railway in 
 operation in the United States, bnilt at a total cost, for construction, 
 of $4,112,367,176, or an average of $46,848 per mile. 
 
 Now, in view of the facts and figures showing the superior and 
 economical location of the Mississippi and its navigable tributaries, 
 their wonderful commercial cai)acity, their facilities for cheap transpor- 
 tation, the enormous annual products of the twenty-one States and 
 Territories intersected, and the colossal proportions of their internal 
 commerce, it may not be unreasonable to estimate their actual commer- 
 cial value as follows : 
 
 The Lower Mississippi, from Saint Louis to the Gulf, at $468,480 per 
 mile, or ten times the average cost per mile of the railways of the 
 United States. 
 
 The Upper Mississippi, from Saint Louis to St. Anthony's Falls, at 
 8327,936 per mile, or seven times that of the average railway. 
 
 The Ohio, from its mouth to Pittsburgh, the Missouri, from its mouth 
 to Sioux City, the Ked River, from its mouth to Shreveport, and the 
 Cumberland, from its mouth to Nashville, at $234,240 per mile, or five 
 times that of the average railway. 
 
 The remaining navigable tributaries of the Mississi^ipi at $46,848 per 
 mile, or the same as that of the average railway. 
 
 We have then a total valuation as follows : 
 
 The Lower Mississippi, from Saint Louis to the Gulf (1,352 miles) |633,387,664 
 
 The Upper Mississippi, from Saint Louis to St. Anthony's Falls (809 
 
 miles) : 265,300,224 
 
 The Ohio, from its mouth to Pittsburgh (1,021 miles) 239,159,040 
 
 The Missouri, from its mouth to Sioux City (1,019 miles) 238,690,560 
 
 The Red, from its mouth to Shreveport (456 miles) 106,813,440 
 
 The Cumberland, from its mouth to Nashville (209 miles) 48,956,160 
 
 The remaining navigable tributaries of the Mississippi (i0,774 miles).. 522,542,592 
 
 Total value 2,054,849,680 
 
 In other words, the people of the United States have in the Missis- 
 sippi and its forty-four navigable tributaries, highways of commerce 
 and cheap transportation to the sea-board to the enormous value of 
 $2,000,000,000. This property was a present from nature. The ques- 
 tion naturally arises, will they manage it on business principles and 
 keep it in an adequate state of repairs? 
 
 COST OP REPAIRS. 
 
 The total sum expended by the General Government from March 4, 
 1789, to June 30, 1886 (a period of ninety-seven years), in the improve- 
 ment of the Mississippi and its forty-four navigable tributaries, was in 
 round numbers about $51,000,000.
 
 16 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 The expenditures by rivers, compiled aud rearranged from the official 
 reports of the Treasury Department, are as follows : 
 
 Name. 
 
 Miaaissippi . 
 Ohio. 
 
 Missouri 
 
 Tenuessi'e 
 
 Kaoawba 
 
 Ked 
 
 Illinois 
 
 Cnuiberlaud 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 ■Wabash'. 
 
 Arkansaas 
 
 Mouongabela 
 
 Ouacliita 
 
 Osago 
 
 Yazoo 
 
 "White 
 
 Chippewa 
 
 Minnesota 
 
 Muskingum 
 
 Yellowstone 
 
 Cypress aud Lake 
 
 St. Croix 
 
 Black (Arkansas) . 
 
 Allegheny 
 
 Sunflower 
 
 St. Francis , 
 
 Black ( Louisiana) . . 
 
 Tallahatchie 
 
 Clinch 
 
 Big Hatcliie , 
 
 Bartholomew 
 
 Amount. 
 
 $29, 
 5, 
 
 785, 666 
 048, 348 
 866, 905 
 816, 456 
 749, 000 
 443, 793 
 161,000 
 722, 479 
 709, 908 
 487, 500 
 420, 076 
 303, 600 
 2'JO, 000 
 189, 994 
 143, 000 
 142, 000 
 128, 000 
 117,500 
 110, 000 
 100, 000 
 94,000. 
 75. 000 
 51,000 
 50, 000 
 42, 000 
 27, OOO 
 25, 000 
 24, 000 
 21,000 
 19,000 
 18, 000 
 
 Name. 
 
 Bauf 
 
 Tensas 
 
 Current 
 
 Bijr Black (Mississippi) 
 
 Ruck 
 
 Green 
 
 Wisconsin (see Miscellaneons). 
 
 Cache 
 
 Macon 
 
 Deer Creek 
 
 Iowa (see Miscellaneons) . 
 
 Big Horn 
 
 Little Red 
 
 Dauchite 
 
 $15, 000 
 
 7,000 
 
 7,000 
 
 5, 000 
 
 934 
 
 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Fox and Wisconsin 
 
 Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, and 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 Mississippi and Ohio 
 
 Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkan- 
 sas 
 
 Mississippi, Missouri, aud Ohio ... 
 
 White and St. Francis 
 
 Mississippi and Missouri 
 
 Lower Mississippi and tributaries 
 
 White, Black, and Little Red 
 
 White, Black, and St. Francis 
 
 Des Moines and Iowa 
 
 Total . 
 
 2, 579, 522 
 
 2, 484, 937 
 031, 500 
 
 265, 000 
 
 222, 923 
 
 132, 000 
 
 98,541 
 
 11, 855 
 
 10, 000 
 
 1, 623 
 
 999 
 
 55, 654, 209 
 
 A slight deduction should be made from the grand total, as Fox 
 Kiver, included in the list, is not a tributary of the Mississippi ; but as 
 its appropriation is combined with that of the Wisconsin, which is a 
 tributary, the two can not be separatetl. Another slight deduction, 
 probably about $3,000,000, should be made from the total for unex- 
 pended balances carried to the surplus fuud, but this deduction can not 
 be given by rivers. Estimating the two deductions at $4,000,000, we 
 have as a net total of expenditures for the improvement of the Missis- 
 sippi and its forty-four navigable tributaries $51,654:,209. This is at the 
 rate of 8532,515 per year during the ninety-seven years since the begin- 
 ning of the Government for the improvement of forty-five rivers, navi- 
 gable to the extent of 16,090 miles, or at the rate of 833 per mile per year. 
 
 As the commercial value of these forty-five rivers is, on a previous 
 page, estimated at 82,054,849,680, the total cost of repairs during the 
 ninety-seven years was but 2i i^er cent, of their value, or at the rate of 
 one-fortieth of 1 jier cent, of their value per year. 
 
 In brief, the forty-five rivers cost nothing, being a present from na- 
 ture, and their repairs next to nothing. 
 
 COittiVIERCIAL CAPACITY. 
 
 The enormous capacity of the Mississippi and its principal tributaries 
 for the transportation of bulky agricultural, forestry, and mineral prod- 
 ucts of the States intersected was admirably illustrated by the follow- 
 ing paragraph which appeared in the Western i^apers in 1879. It is a 
 volume in itself, and worthy of frequent repetition to impress upon the 
 minds of the producers of this country the great commercial importance 
 of the water-ways with which they have l)een so liberally endowed by 
 nature: 
 
 The tow-boat Josh JiilliayiiH is on licr w.ay to New Orleans with a tow of thirty-two 
 barges, containing 000,000 bushels (70 ponuds to the bushel) of coal, exclusive of her 
 own fuel, being the largest tow ever taken to New Orleans or anywhere else in the 
 ■world. Her freight bill, at :5 cents a bushel, amounts to •Sl'i.OOO.
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIOABLE TRIBUTARIES. 17 
 
 It would take 1,800 cars of 333 busLels to the car (which is an overload for a car) 
 to transport this atnouut of coal. 
 
 At .|10 per ton, or .?100 per car, which would be a fair price for the disfance by rail, 
 the freight bill would amount to $180,000, or $162,000 more by rail than by river. 
 
 The tow will be taken from Pittsburgh to New Orleans in fourteen or fifteen days. 
 
 It would require one hundred trains, of eighteen cars to the train, to transport this 
 one tow of 600,000 bushels of coal, and even if it made the usual speed of fast freight 
 lines it would take one whole summer to put it through by rail. 
 
 This statement shows the wonderful superiority of this river over rail facilities. 
 
 CHEAP TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 The question of cheap transportation has during late years assumed 
 great importance, for the reason that it affects both internal and for- 
 eign commerce and the welfare of botb the producer and consumer. 
 When the rates are too high, production is checked. It has been no 
 unusual thing to hear of farmers in the West burning or otherwise de- 
 stroying their grain because it was unprofitable to ship it abroad. The 
 object of commercial exchanges is profit, and where that does not exist 
 internal commerce suflers. So with foreign exchanges. If England 
 and France and other purchasers of our grain and provisions can buy 
 at cheaper rates elsewhere thej^ are sure to do so. The competition 
 among commercial nations is so great that a trifling overcharge in rates 
 of transportation may cost the loss of an important market. 
 
 The rivals of the Unite4 States will, if they can supply Liverpool at 
 cheaper rates, control that market. The subject was well illustrated in 
 a public letter by ex-Governor Horatio Seymour in the fall of 1878, who 
 has carefully studied the effect of the Erie Canal on freight rates. We 
 quote the following following from that letter : 
 
 Those who wish to learn the causes of our present exports must compare the cost 
 of carrying this season with that of other years. It has been 15 cents lor a bushel 
 of wheat Ijy canal from Buffalo to New York. This season at times it has been less 
 than .0 cents. The cost from Chicago to New York has been 2.5 cents for a bushel. In 
 the past summer it has been taken for less than 7 cents. The policy of taking charges 
 off from commerce is not only shown upon water routes ; it brought down railroad 
 charges. In 1873 the Central road charged for taking wheat from Buffalo to New 
 York 21 cents jjer bushel in the winter and 18 cents in the supimer months. This 
 year the road has taken it for 5 cents. 
 
 The effect of water transportation is direct and indirect. In other 
 words, it furnishes the shipper with cheap rates, and also, by its com- 
 petitive influence, forces railways to lessen the charges. 
 
 The rates of transportation of grain from the center of the Mississippi 
 Yalley at Saint Louis to the sea-board at New Orleans by river, contrasted 
 with the rates from Saint Louis to New York by rail, were, according to 
 the annual reports of the Saint Louis Merchants' Exchange, as follows 
 during the past ten years: 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 Aver.ige rate 
 on wheat, 
 in bulk, 
 injbarges, 
 by river, to 
 New Or- 
 leans, per 
 bushel. 
 
 Average rate 
 on grain 
 
 in sacks, on 
 
 steam- boat, 
 by river, 
 
 to A'ew Or- 
 leans, per 
 
 100 pounds. 
 
 Average rate 
 
 on grain 
 
 hy rail to 
 
 ^NewTork, 
 
 per 100 
 
 pounds. 
 
 1877 
 
 Cents. 
 8i 
 'i 
 
 8| 
 6 
 
 6| 
 6s 
 Gi 
 
 Cents. 
 21 
 17i 
 18 
 19 
 20 
 20 
 17| 
 14 
 13 
 16 
 
 Cents 
 
 41 
 
 1878 
 
 W 
 
 1879 
 
 33^ 
 4^ 
 
 1880 
 
 18K1.. .. .. 
 
 89 
 
 1882 
 
 29^ 
 
 1^83 
 
 18S4 
 
 •'fi 
 
 1885 ... . . 
 
 22| 
 
 1886 
 

 
 18 THE MISSISSIPPI AND* ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 It will he observed that the rate oj> pfraiii by river to the sea-board at 
 isew Orleans diiriiijj: 1S8G was 1^^ cents less per hundred pounds than by 
 rail to the sea-board at New York. To ai)preciate the mafrnitude of this 
 iliflerence when applied to the ^rain crop of the twenty one States and 
 Tei-ritories intersected by the Mississii)pi and its navigable tributaries, 
 supposing: half of the annual crop had to be transported from Saint 
 Louis to the sea-board, let us glance at a few statistics. 
 
 Their total grain crop during the year 188.") was 2,529,781,000 bushels, 
 as may be seen by reference to another i)age. A saving of 7 cents per 
 bushei on half of this crop would amount to $88,042,335. 
 
 But grain is' only one item of the agricultural freights of the valley 
 ^N'hicii can best be transported by water. If to the above sum of 
 ■$88,542,335 were added the possible annual saving by river transporta- 
 tion «oo the hay, coal, potatoes, cotton, tobacco, and other bulky products 
 <of the valley the total would reach immense proi)ortions. 
 
 We know of no better conclusion to draw from the above facts and 
 Mgures than that made by the Select Committee of the United States 
 •Seuate, in 1874, on Transportation Eoutes to the Sea-board, after a full 
 cand exhaustive review of that important subject, viz: 
 
 The above facts and conchisions, together with the remarkable physical adaptation 
 of our conntry for cheap and ample water communication, point unerriu<^ly to the 
 improvement of onr great natural water-ways and their couuection by canals, or by 
 short freight railway portages, under control of the Government, as the obvious and 
 certain solution of the problem of cheap transportation. 
 
 The importance of this subject may be further illustrated by a glance 
 at the total freight earnings of the railroads of the United States dur- 
 ing a period of only six years. They were as follows: 
 
 ■ 1881 1.551,968,477 
 
 1382 50ti, :}67,247 
 
 1883 549,756,(395 
 
 1884 502,869,910 
 
 1885 519,090,992 
 
 Total 2, 630, 65o, 321 
 
 In other words, the freight charges by the railways of the United 
 States amount in five vears to a sum greater than the whole national 
 <iebt. 
 
 We do not make these comparisons for the purpose of reflecting upon 
 ■railways, but to reach some statistical conclusion in regard to the value 
 and importance of the rivers of the valley. In this broad, fertile, and 
 but partially develoi)ed country there is room enough for both classes 
 of highways. Railways are needed, not only those now in operation, 
 but many more, and rivers are needed as freight regulators. 
 
 In brief, the Mississippi is the balance-wheel which is destined to 
 
 ■ regulate the railway freight movements of the great interior of the 
 nation. This idea was well expressed in the following editorial of the 
 Springfield liepublican of Efecember 13, 1880: 
 
 The Mississippi River is certain in time to jday a part in regulating transcouti- 
 cental freiglit transportation not unlike that of the P>ie Canal iu relation to the 
 New York railroads. The block iu through freight on all the East and ^Yest roads 
 threatened last week to set back to Saint Louis, but it was relieved there by starting 
 the corn and wheat down the river, from 300 to 400 cars at a time being loaded on 
 barges. As trade develops and navigation imi)rovos it is plain this must become 
 more and more common, and through rail rates will some day be fixed by the couiiie- 
 titiou of the Mississippi, on which navigation is never closed.
 
 IV -PRODUCTS OF STATES INTERSECTED. 
 
 CO>'TEAST WITH THOSE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The transcendent commercial importance of the water-ways of the 
 Mississippi and its forty-four navigable tributaries can best be appre- 
 ciated b3' a glance at the statistics of the great staple products of the 
 twenty-one States and Territories intersected or bordered by this system. 
 
 Their products, contrasted with those of the whole United States, 
 during the last census year (1880) were as follows: 
 
 Nine-eight per cent, of the sugar. 
 
 Xinety-four per cent, of the coal. 
 
 Eighty-nine per cent, of the corn. 
 
 Eighty one per cent, of the pig-iron. 
 
 Seventy- six per cent, of the oats. 
 
 Seventy-four per cent, of the wheat. 
 
 Sixty-eight per cent, of the cotton. 
 
 Sixty-six per cent, of the tobacco. 
 
 Sixty per cent, of the hay. 
 
 Fifty-seven per cent, of the forest products. 
 
 Fifty-six per cent, of the wool. 
 
 Eighty-two per cent, of the swine. 
 
 Seventy-seven per cent, of the mules. 
 
 Seventy-four per cent, of the horses. 
 
 Seventy-three per cent, of the cattle. 
 
 Their total grain product during the year 1885 was as follows : 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Indian coru 1,729,924,000 
 
 Oats 514,100,000 
 
 Wheat 241,722,000 
 
 Barley 22.916,000 
 
 Eye ^. 15,464,000 
 
 BuckAvbeat 5, 655, 000 
 
 Total 2,529,781,000 
 
 In other words, the States and Territories tapped by the navigable 
 portions of the Mississippi Eiver system produced grain to the extent 
 of 45 bushels for every man, woman, and child in the United States, 
 estimating the population that year at .55,000,000 souls. They are, then, 
 not onlv the granarv of the nation, but of the world. 
 
 19
 
 V -INTERNAL COMMERCE OF THE STATES INTERSECTED. 
 
 ESTIMATE OF ITS VALUE. 
 
 It is, of course, diflBcult to estimate the value of the iuterual commerce 
 of the twenty-one States and Territories under consideration, for, un- 
 like foreign commerce, it is not subject to the hiws and regulations 
 which necessitate a record of transactions with foreign countries. 
 
 The Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, in his first annual re])ort on 
 the iuternal commerce of the United States, published in 1877, esti- 
 mated its value to be twenty-five times that of our total foreign com- 
 merce. Bis reasons for the estimate were as follows : 
 
 The relative importance of iuterual and of foreign commerce may be inferred from 
 tlie foUo^viug comparative statements: 
 Estimated value of shipping (American and foreign) employed in our 
 
 foreign trade $200,000,000' 
 
 Estimated value of tlie railroads of the United States 4,600,000,000 
 
 The value of the commodities embiaced in onr foreijjn commerce and the estimated 
 value of commodities transported on railroads ure as follows: 
 
 Value of imports and exports (foreign commerce) ..^ §1, 121, 034, 277 
 
 Estimated value of commodities transported on rail (^ internal com- 
 merce) 18,000,000,001: 
 
 It appears from these estimates that the value of the railroads of the country i." 
 about twenty-three times the value of the shipping engaged in our foreign trade, and 
 that the A'alue of our internal commerce on railroads is about sixteen times the value 
 of our foreign commeice. 
 
 It is to be observed that these comparative statements embrace the value of our 
 entire foreign commerce, whereas the data in regard to internal commerce relate only 
 to railroads. 
 
 If it were possible to ascertain the value of the commerce between the different sec- 
 tions of the country, on the ocean and gulf, and on the lakes, rivers, and other 
 avenues of transportation, we should probably find that the total value of our internal 
 commerce is at least twenty-live times greater than the value of our foreign c^om- 
 merce. 
 
 If we accept this estimate as correct, we must multiply the present 
 foreign commerce of the United States (which during the fiscal year 
 ending Juue 30, 188G, was $1,314,900,906 in value) by twenty-five to 
 reach the present total of our internal commerce. The result is the 
 enormous sum of $32,874,024,150, or more than double the value of the 
 foreign commerce of the whole world. 
 
 The question now arises, what i)ortion of this internal trade belongs 
 to the twenty-one States and Territories tapped by the navigable ])or- 
 tions of the Mississij)pi and tributaries ? In view of the facts and figures 
 above given in regard to their percentage of stajde products, it is 
 doubtless fair to assume that their internal trade is at least half that af 
 the United States. The logical conclusion, then, from the above prem- 
 ises IS that the internal commerce of the twenty-one States and Terri- 
 tories is ujiward of s 10,000,000,000 in valu(>, or greater than the foreign 
 commerce of all nations combined.
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 21 
 
 But sui)i)ose tbis estimate by the Cliief of the Bureau is too high (an 
 a discussion of the subject in a subsequent report seems to in<licate), 
 and that it be reduced one-half, even then the internal commerce of the 
 tweuty-one States and Territories would be as great as the foreign com- 
 merce of Great Britain, France, and Germany combined. 
 
 HOW TRANSPORTED. 
 
 In former days, before the era of railways, the products of the val- 
 ley were carried almost entirely by river. It was also the i)rincipal 
 passenger line. The small boats of the early Spanish and French ex- 
 plorers floated upon its waters. The early emigration from the East to 
 the West relied upon the waters of the Ohio. The trading posts of the 
 valley were established upon the banks of the various navigable 
 streams, and with the growth of the towns, villages, and cities the 
 traffic upon the Mississippi and tributaries grew to large proportions. 
 But how is it to-day ? 
 
 Perhaps no fairer illustration can be found than the receipts and 
 shipments of freight of Saint Louis, situated as it is in the center of 
 this great river system. 
 
 During the past ten years the total receipts and shipments of this 
 commercial center were in tons, as follows : 
 
 
 Tear. 
 
 By River. 
 
 By Rail. 
 
 1877 
 
 Tons. 
 1, 242, 155 
 1, 329, 375 
 1,366,115 
 1, 931, 385 
 1, 736, 435 
 1,571,985 
 1, 306, 565 
 1, 03.5, 260 
 1, 013, 2^0 
 1, 132. 100 
 
 Tons. 
 5, 137, 238 
 
 1 878 
 
 5, 655, 866 
 
 1879 
 
 6, 94», 794 
 
 1 880 
 
 8, 852, 204 
 
 1881 
 
 =■ 
 
 10, 213, 487 
 
 1882 
 
 10, 649, 7S2 
 
 1883 
 
 10, 40.S, 939 
 
 1884 . 
 
 10,0-52,206 
 
 1885 . . ... 
 
 10,301.301 
 
 1886 . . . . - - - -- - -- 
 
 10, 728, 110 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 13,664,615 
 
 88, 957. 927 
 
 
 
 In brief, ten years ago 19.4 per cent, of annual freights of Saint 
 Louis were transported by river and 80.6 per cent, by rail ; but during 
 the last year only 9^ per cent, were transported by river. 
 
 INCREASING DEMAND FOR TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 The importance of keeping the inland water lines in good repair may 
 be seen from the past demand of the valley for transportation routes 
 to the sea-board, but still more clearly from an examination of its prob- 
 able future growth and development. In business matters we can 
 safely judge the future by the past. What material progress, then, do 
 we find, and what may we expect in the future ? 
 
 The statistics of corn grown in the twenty-one States and Territories 
 intersected by the Mississippi and tributaries during the years 1860 and 
 1885 were as follows : 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 l^(ju 651, •'Jl-4, 4;5(j 
 
 liSo l,7-.i9,l»i4,000 
 
 This was an increase of 165 per cent, in twenty-five years.
 
 22 
 
 THE MISSI.SSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLB TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 The growing (leniaiul tbrtrausportatiou facilities may be further illus- 
 trated by reference to the statistics of iniiiroved lands at the time of the 
 census of 1S7U and 18S(». 
 
 Ai'kausas 
 
 IllilK.IS... 
 
 Indiana. . 
 Iowa 
 
 Kansas 
 
 Kentucky. . 
 Loui.siaua.. 
 Miuue.--oia 
 Mississippi 
 Missouri ... 
 Nebraska .. 
 Ohio 
 
 Tennessee 
 
 ■Wisconsin 
 
 Dakota 
 
 Judiau Territory. 
 
 Total 
 
 State. 
 
 Total area. 
 
 cres. 
 ■106, 
 4G2. 
 637, 
 228, 
 043, 
 115. 
 461. 
 45U, 
 
 la". 
 
 824, 
 636, 
 576, 
 \U, 
 511, 
 596, 
 154. 
 
 -Improved 
 land, 1870. 
 
 cres. 
 859, 821 
 329, 952 
 104. 279 
 396, 467 
 971. 003 
 103, 850 
 U45, 640 
 322, 102 
 209, 14G 
 13U, 615 
 647, 031 
 469, 133 
 &43, 278 
 899, 343 
 42, 645 
 
 Improved 
 land, 188U. 
 
 Aeren. 
 
 3. 595, 603 
 26, 215, 154 
 13, 933, 738 
 19.866.541 
 10, 739, 566 
 10, 731, 682 
 
 2, 739. 972 
 
 7, 246, 693 
 5, 216, 937 
 
 16, 745, 031 
 5, 504, 702 
 18,081,091 
 
 8, 4!t6, 5.'6 
 
 9, 162, 528 
 1,150,413 
 
 632, 479, 360 | 96, 374, 305 159, 326, 208 
 
 The contrast shows that in 1870 only lo percent, of the area of these 
 great and productive States and Territories was then improved, and 
 that 85 per cent, remained for development, and that in 1880 but 25 
 per cent., or one-fourth part, was improved. 
 
 The coal fields of the vallev States furnish still more striking evi- 
 dence to the same effect. Their product and its increase in fifteen 
 years were as follows : 
 
 Tons. 
 
 1870 6,793,098 
 
 1^6o 32, llr;,^08 
 
 Increase 25, 32.^, 110 
 
 Ur more than 370 per cent. 
 
 That increase is trifling compared with what we may expect in the 
 near future, for the coal deposits of these States are the most extensive 
 that exist in the whole country, yet the least develoi)ed. 
 
 These facts and figures clearly indicate that we may expect a regu- 
 larly increasing demand for cheap, convenient, and untrammeled trans- 
 portation from the valley to the sea-board, until its fertile fields are 
 adequately populated and developed. 
 
 Unless this reasonable demand is supplied by a thorough and com- 
 prehensive improvement of the channels of the Mississippi and its con- 
 fluents, the natural development of the great interior States will fall 
 far short of their possibilities, and the consumers of the East, as well 
 as the producers of the West, will sufler from the neglect.
 
 VI -ALLUVIAL LANDS. 
 
 AREA AND PRESENT CONDITION. 
 
 The area of the alluvial lands along the Lower Mississippi and tribu- 
 taries is 41,193 square miles, being as large as the combined areas of New 
 Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Khode Island, Connecticut, and 
 ]^ew Jersey. It is three fourths the extent of England, which contains 
 52,922 square miles, and more than eighteen times larger than Holland; 
 which is a rich country formed by the protection of alluvial lands along 
 certain rivers and the Zuyder Zee. This area of the Mississippi Delta, 
 reduced to acres, is 20,363,520. According to those most familiar with, 
 the subject, and who are competent judges, all but 10 percent, of these 
 lands are susceptible of cultivation and of unsurpassed fertility. We 
 have, then, 23,727,168 acres to be protected, their increased values to be 
 added to tbe general wealth and their products to help swell the sum 
 total of the national industries. 
 
 What is their present condition ? We find that in 1870 but 1,969,235- 
 acres, or less than 8 per cent, of their area, was under cultivation. 
 
 Why are these rich and productive lands thus neglected ? Chiefly, if" 
 not solely, because of the periodical destruction of crops, buildings, and. 
 danger to health and even life from the overflow of the river. 
 
 PRESENT VALUE. 
 
 The value of the above 1,969,238 acres, improved in 1870, was, accord- 
 ing to an estimate by the Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army, $80,431,221,. 
 or 840.84 per acre. The remaining 21,757,930 acres which are unim- 
 proved, but susceptible of cultivation, had but trifling values, say from 
 10 cents to $2 per acre. Mr. Ellis said, in his report to the House of 
 Representatives in 1876: "Millions of acres have been sold for taxes ;: 
 others, after advertisement, have failed to bring anything whatever." 
 It is believed 81.25 was iu 1876 a fair estimate of the value per acre of 
 those unimproved lands. We reach, then, the following conclusion,, 
 supposing the values and areas cultivated have not materially changed r 
 
 Value of improved lands $80,431,221 
 
 Value of unimproved lands 27, 197,612: 
 
 Total value 107,628,&33; 
 
 FUTURE VALUE IF PROTECTED. 
 
 Xow, let us consider their possibilities. The totals resulting are sa- 
 large that only by comparison can we appreciate the fairness of the 
 estimate. 
 
 Probably no one will dispute the assertion that the Delta of the Mis- 
 sissippi is as productive as the Delta of the Rhine iu the Netherlands, 
 and if the statistics of the value of the protected lands in Holland and 
 
 23
 
 24 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 otber provinces of tlie Xetlit'ilaii(l.s wtMe accessible, it would be an in- 
 terestinj; and fair comparison, because of the similarity existing be- 
 tween these countries. But as they are not within reach, we will take 
 for a comparison the farm lands of New Jersey. We select that State, 
 because its farm lands have a very high value per acre, and for the 
 further reason that no lands in the country are too fertile and valuable 
 to be contrasted with the possibilities of the Mississi{)pi Delta. 
 
 According to the United States census of 1880 the average value per 
 acre of the 2,090,207 acres of improved lauds in New Jersey, including 
 farms, fences, and buildings, was 801 per acre. 
 
 The alluvial lauds of the Mississij)pi, if i)rotected and improved, 
 wouhl, at that rate per acre, be worth 82,300,080,320. As their present 
 value is but 8107,028,833, the increase would be more than $2,000,000,000. 
 
 PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY. 
 
 It certainly is not an overestimate of the productive capacity of the 
 alluvial lauds to sa}' they will yield on an average as much as the farm 
 lands of Xew Jersey. Such a comparison doubtless underestimates 
 their capacity'. The value per acre of the products of the improved lands 
 of said State was, in 1880, $14.14. At that yield per acre the alluvial 
 lands would annually produce to the value of 8372,780,172. This is a 
 moderate estimate, as may be seen from the following calculation, made 
 from a different basis: According to the otlicial report of 1877, of the 
 United States Commissioner of Agriculture, it takes, in the cotton- 
 producing States of this country, an average of 2.03 acres to produce 
 one bale of cotton. No one tamiliar with the alluvial lands will dispute 
 their wonderful capacity for cotton-growing. At the same rate, 2.03 
 acres to the bale, the total area would produce 9,021,736 bales. Re- 
 ducing that to ijounds, at 440 pounds to the bale, we have a total of 
 3,909,503,840 pounds. At 11 cents per pound the total value of their 
 annual croj) would be $430,052,022. It is evidently nearer the truth to 
 say that the overtiowed lands, if protected and cultivated as carefully 
 as the farm lauds of New Jersey, would produce on an average at least 
 one bale to every acre. It is an assertion which any planter familiar 
 with the wonderful fertility, depth, and inexhaustibility of the alluvial 
 soil will readily indorse. At that rate the Delta of the Mississippi 
 wouhl produce each year 23,727,108 bales, worth, at 440 pounds to the 
 bale, and at 11 cents per pound, 81,148,394,031. 
 
 CONTRASTS WITH THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 The history of the protection and development of the Netherlands 
 (low countries), an exact parallel in formation to the alluvial lands of 
 the Mississippi Valley, proves very clearly that we have not overesti- 
 mated the importance of the subject. 
 
 The United Kingdom of the Nctlierlands contains but 12,080 square 
 njiles, and North and South Ilolland, two of the eleven subdivisions of 
 the same, but 2,20:) square miles. The whole of the Netherlands is 
 made-land, having been funned by protection from the overflow of the 
 Lower Khine, the Maas, the Scheldt, and other rivers, 90 lakes, and the 
 Zuyder Zee. The total cost of their protection by dikes, embaidvuients, 
 and otiier works was 81, .■500,000,000. The annual cost of guarding, 
 protecting, and repairing i.s stated to be from 82,000,000 to $2,500,000. 
 rrobal)ly that country, in i)roportion to its population, is the wealthiest 
 nation ui)on the face of the earth.
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 25 
 
 All elaborate review of the same says : 
 
 The country is everywhere well peopled, and no population in the world exhibits a 
 more unilbrm appearance of wealth, comfort, and contentment. 
 
 Holland not only has capital enough for home use, but the Dutch of 
 Amsterdam are capitalist who have a large surplus to lend for public 
 improvements and large enterprises in other nations. Yet all the wealth 
 of this rich and commercially powerful kingdom was accumulated in 
 an alluvial country having an area less than one-third that of the allu- 
 vial lands along the Lower Mississippi. 
 
 We will profit by their example if we protect our own lands from over- 
 flows — lands which are equally productive and far more easily and 
 cheaply protected. The Dutch are, as a nation, economical and con- 
 servative. We, who claim to be progressive, should display equal en- 
 terprise in adding to the sum total of our national wealth, particularly 
 when it can be done incidentally to a more important work — the im- 
 provement of navigation. 
 
 THE QUESTION OP PEOTECTION. 
 
 If incidentally to the improvement of navigation the rich alluvial 
 lands of the Lower Mississippi Valley should be protected from de- 
 structive floods, and almost fabulous additions made to the taxable 
 wealth of the country, millions of citizens would be benefited and none 
 injured. But before stating the facts and figures it may be well to 
 notice some of the popular misunderstandings of this important subject. 
 
 The Mississippi Kivor Commission, who have now in charge the work 
 of improvement, have repeatedly, since their appointment, been termed 
 by the press the "Levee Commission," thereby conveying to the mind 
 of the public the erroneous impression that their chief duty was to 
 serve the interest of one section of the valley and build levees. What 
 are the facts 1 The act creating the Commission is entitled, "An act 
 to provide for the ai)pointment of a 'Mississippi River Commission,' 
 for the improvement of said river from the head of the passes, near its 
 mouth, to its headwaters," which headwaters are in the State of 'Min- 
 nesota, near the northern boundary of the L^nited States. Section 4 of 
 the act prescribes their duty as follows : 
 
 It shall be the duty of said Commission to take into consideration and mature such 
 plan or plans a-t will correct, permanently locate, and deepen the channel, and pro- 
 tect the banks of the Mississippi River; improve and give safety and ease to the navi- 
 gation thereof; prevent destructive doods ; promote and facilitate commerce, trade, 
 and the postal service. 
 
 The Commission shall report in full upon the practicability, feasibility, and prob- 
 able cost of the various plans known as the jetty system, the levee system, and the 
 outlet system, as well as upon such others as they deem necessary. 
 
 This correction is important, for such misapprehension tends to throw 
 discredit upon a great national work. 
 
 Another source of misunderstanding and opposition has been the un- 
 necessary use of the wor<l "reclamation" in many bills which have in 
 the past been introduced in Congress upon the subject of river improve- 
 ment. That word was not used in the act creating the Commission, nor 
 is it one of their duties to do farming for individuals at Government 
 expense. An emphatic disclaimer of such a purpose was made in the 
 House of Representatives by the chairman of the Committee on the 
 Mississippi, Hon. E. W. Robertson, in a speech advocating the appoint- 
 ment of a commission. He said of the bill then pending : 
 
 It conlemplates the improvement of the chief avenue of transportation of a great 
 commercial nation. It also seeks to protect from floods and pestilence over 26,000,000
 
 26 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TPvIBUTARIES. 
 
 acres of the most fertile and productive lands upon the face of the earth. It does 
 not, as is so often allei:;ed, aim at the reclamation of those lands, or seek to perform 
 ^vork which properly belongs to the individual citizen. The word " reclamation " is 
 not used in the bill. It is well that we understand the distinction at the outset of 
 this discussion, for the wroujjc 'i^*? fiu'I confusion of terms have given the opponents of 
 river improvement an opportunity to misiuterjiret, and therefore misrepresent, the 
 object we seek to accomplish. The word "reclamation" has furnished them with the 
 key-note of unjust criticism. We simply ask protection from the frequent ravages of 
 this great river, over which no jiower but the General Government has legal control, 
 in order that we who possess lauds along its course may have an opportunity to re- 
 claim and cultivate them at our own expense. 
 
 In auother speech iu the House of Representatives, May 18, 1882, on 
 the subject of the " protection of the valley,*' he was still more explicit, 
 and stated the case with great force, as follows : 
 
 In brief, we ask the protection not simply of alluvial lands, but agricultural in a 
 broad and national sense; not only agriculture, but manufactures, commerce, the 
 postal service, and the people themselves of the lower valley, an alluvial area em- 
 bracing 41,000 sijuare miles, or nearly as large as all New England; three times the 
 area of the celebrated valley of the Nile, formerly the granary of the oriental world; 
 and eighteen times the size of Holland — a magnilicent empire in its extent and re- 
 sources. 
 
 From what do we ask protection ? From the overflows of a great national sewer 
 tilled with the drainage of twenty-eight States and Territories ; from the overflow 
 of a great national highway of commerce, the trunk line of forty-two navigable trib- 
 utaries, which supply water transportation to twenty-two States and Territories; 
 from the overflow of a Government postal route, a river subject to the admiralty and 
 maritime jurisdiction of the United States; from an enemy in whose clutches a single 
 State is as powerless as a little child in the deadly clasp of the octopus ; from a river 
 which iu itself and in its relations to the nation is exceptional.
 
 VII.-DESTRUCTIVE FLOODS. 
 
 The destructive tloods of the Mississippi Vulley not only sweep over 
 the alluvial lands of the lower valley between Cairo and the Gulf, but 
 frequently occur in the valleys of the Upper Mississippi, the Missouri, 
 Ohio, Red, Arkansas, Tennessee, Cumberland, Yazoo, and other rivers 
 of this comprehensive system, carrying with them enormous destruction 
 to crops, roads, railroads, postal-routes, buildings, live-stock, commerce, 
 and industries. They are often attended with the loss of life itself. 
 
 FLOODS OF 1868 AND 1S71, 
 
 Mr. Morey, in his report to the House of Representatives during the 
 Forty-second Congress, said of the tloods of 18G8 and 1871 : 
 
 The destruction caused by the last two tloods above named in the Ouachita Valley- 
 is almost incredible. A valley of almost unexampled fertility, capable of raising, 
 beside corn and stock in great abundance, at least 75,000 bales of cotton, worth, at 
 the average price of this season, more than 85.000,000, was inundated, plantations 
 destroyed, buildings washed away, cattle and swine by the thousand starved or 
 drowned, etc. 
 
 FLOOD OF 1871. 
 
 Another flood in 1871 was still more destructive. Mr. Ellis, in his 
 report to the House, in 1876, says of it : 
 
 The loss by the flood of 1S74 was §13,000,000. This year, so far as it can be ascer- 
 tained, it is .$'2,000,000. And this makes the total sum .$15,000,000 in actual material 
 wealth within three years. 
 
 FLOOD OF 1881. 
 
 The great flood throughout the length and breadth of the Mississippi 
 Valley in the spring of 1881 was unusually destructive, the damage 
 amounting to many millions of dollars. As it is impossible to give an 
 accurate estimate of the total damage, we will give a few illustrations- 
 by extracts from the press dispatches published in leading daily papers 
 of that time: 
 
 Omaha, April 25.— The flood still continues. The river rose 2 inches last night at 
 this point, but it has done no further damage to manufacturing interests on the water 
 front. Much lumber in the yards has been removed to higher ground. The L^nion 
 Pacific shops and smelting works, Boyd's packing-house and distillery are still under 
 water, and 1,600 men are out of employment. 
 
 At Council Blulfs one-half of thecity is nnder water, and 600 people are hojieless. 
 All passengers from Eastern trains are transferred by boat to the Union Pacific depot. 
 
 A dispatch from Sioux City announces a fall of 6 inches at that point. 
 
 This morning high winds set in from the north and stirred up the vast body of 
 water north of the long embankment leading up to the Union Pacific bridge on the 
 east side, and the high waves dashing against it soon washed out the dirt close up to 
 the ties. This was discovered just in time to prevent an accident, and a large force 
 of men were put to work piling sand bags along the north side, thus breaking the 
 force of the waves and saving the embankment. Two hours more and the water 
 would have taken out a section of several hundred feet of the approach to the bridge. 
 The transfer of passengers, baggage, and mails is continued by boat at Council Bluffs- 
 
 27
 
 28 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 There is no material change in affairs here since yesterday. The Union Pacific roail 
 is rnnninjr rej^ular trains. 
 
 The vilLige of WaterU^o, near Elkhorn River, 2.5 miles west of Omaha, is Hooded 
 to a depth of fj feet. 
 
 Tlie overliow, which covers the country lor many miles, is doint; consideralde daui- 
 ajjc to farms in Elkhorn Valley. 
 
 Some citizPHHof Waterloo chiimeil their town was Hooded owing to the Union I'acilic 
 Kailroad embankment holding tlie water back, and they threatened to open a channel 
 throngh it, bnt were prevented by the timely appearance of a sheriff and posse of 
 •constables from Omaha. Six ice-honses, located in Omaha Bottoms, have been 
 wrecked by higli water and rendered a total loss. A largo wagon-bridge came down 
 the river to-day, lamling on tlie east side of the smelting works. 
 
 Hannibal, ^fo., April 'iTt. — The Sny levee broke at :5 o'clock this morning, at a point 
 tibont a mile and a half above East Hannibal. The crevasse is 1150 foet wide, ami the 
 water is still cntting both below and above the break. Near East Hannibal there 
 are several weak points liable to go at any moment. The river is 19 feet and 1 jncli 
 above low-water mark, and is still vising, but very slowly. 
 
 Trains from Qnincy to Hannibal, via the Chicago, Burlington and Qnincy Railroad, 
 are abandoned, the track between Fall Creek and East Hannibal inside the levee 
 being under water. It is estimated that 30,000 acres of fall wheat had been sown in- 
 side the levee, all of which is now a total loss. There are nearer 10,000 acres, the 
 yield of which heretofore had averaged 30 bushels to the acre. This season it stood 
 finer than ever. The loss on wheat alone is placed at $1,000,000. The river is still 
 slowly rising, and has now nearly reach(;d the highest point of last year. 
 
 Saint Loui*, April 2.'). — The river is rising and rapidly approaching the danger line. 
 A rise of another foot and the water will submerge some of the low lands in the north- 
 •ern ])art of the city, and inundate part of the bottoms on the Illinois side of the river. 
 Much apprehension is felt for property on both sides of the river, and measures are 
 being taken to protect it. Old steam-boat men are j^redicting a Hood of unusual 
 magnitude, and say that if the present warm weather continues, and particularly if 
 there is much rain-fall in the north, a freshet equal to that of lf541 will probably 
 ibllow. 
 
 Binmarck, April 25. — One mile of track and thirty pile-bridges washed away consti- 
 tute the extent of damages on the Northern Pacific extension. Night and day forces 
 are at work repairing, and trains to the end of the track are promised in a few days. 
 
 Kansas City, April 2'). — The levee which was built to protect the town of Harlem 
 and the broad bottom lands opposite the city from overflowing gave way on Saturday 
 uight, and a strong current, 10 feet deep, is now running at the rate of h or 6 miles an 
 hour over the tracks of the Hannibal and Saint Joseph Council Bluffs. Chicago, Rock 
 Island and Pacific, and Wabash roads. For nearly a mile all these tracks are supposed 
 to be washed out. The levee gave way about 10 o'clock at night. The water is over- 
 flowing a large number of farms to the depth of from 4 to 6 feet. 
 
 Saint Paul, Minn., April 25. — A special from Fergus Falls says the upper country is 
 an unbroken sheet of water, beginning at a point about 25 miles below Saint Vincent 
 and extending this way to the vicinity of Crookston. Twenty-five miles south of Ste- 
 venson the water has swept away the track of the Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Man- 
 itoba Railroad, and all railroad travel is suspended. 
 
 Saint Paul, Minn., April 27. — The flood at Saint Paul, caused by the coming down 
 of high water in the Minnesota River, continues. The water has now reached 18 feet 
 in the channel — 3 feet higher than during the June rise of last year, and the highest 
 point reached since the great flood of 1867. There is to-day scarcely a foot of uncovered 
 land in the entire country west of Saint Paul, flat lands, over which the waters are not 
 now running riot. Old residents there affinu that although they have frequently seen 
 the water cover the lowlands, they have never known the current so strong as to sweep 
 over them with such overwhelming velocity as it is doing to-day. The current carried 
 away the bank on which Fifth street is l)uilt tins morning, and there is only a singli 
 roa I remaining uncovered between river and bluff. A visit to the scene to-day fouml 
 hundreds of houses isolated by water and the occupants busy moving. The sides ol 
 the raised embankment were filled in many places with all manner of household elfects. 
 which had been brought in boats from the inundated residences, and around which 
 wi r(! the owners watching and guarding the same while awaiting the arrival of vehi- 
 cles to transport the goods to .some place of safety. 
 
 Omaha, Nebr., April 27. — The river has faUeu 10 inches here. A further fall of 1- 
 inches is reported at Sioux City. Information having been received at Nebraska City 
 that many ]>eople living on the river north of that <ity were in great peril, one of tin 
 ferry-boats started out yesterday and rescued nearly 200 nieii, women, and children, 
 some of whom had been without food two or three days, and were sufleriug extremely 
 from hunger. These i»eople were lodged in the opera house, the city hall, churches, 
 and other public buildings. * • »
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 28> 
 
 East Nebraska, ou the Iowa side of the river, is entirely flooded, and all the inhab- 
 itants have been compelled to abandon their homes and seek refnge in Nebraska City 
 proper. Thousands of people along the river bottoms in Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, 
 and Kansas are homeless and destitute. Passengers, mail, and baggage trains ar- 
 rived here same as the last few days, only did it more rapidly than heretofore. It 
 will be at least one week before the railroads get into the same shape as before the- 
 flood. 
 
 Saint Joseph Mo., April 27. — The river at this point is 22 feet 6 inches above low- 
 water mark and rising slowly. Many families have been rescued from their inun- 
 dated houses in the bottom lands during the day, generally in destitute circumstances. 
 All the available flat-boats have been in use removing people and stock. An old man 
 and his wife, 76 to dO years of age, were to-day rescued from the Elmwood bottom, 
 where they were living in a small one-story house, having been two or three days 
 surrounded by the swift current, a mile from land, and the water 2 feet deep in the 
 house. * * » 
 
 Atchison, Kans., April 27. — Contrary to expectations, the river has continued to rise- 
 steadily during the past twenty-four hours, and is now 22 feet 4 inches above low- 
 water mark and at least 20 inches above the level of the great flood of 1844. The 
 Missouri Pacific road continues to atford the only connection with the East, and it 
 has to send its passengers and mails around by way of Topeka. 
 
 Chicago, April 2U. — The total loss of property by the flood on the Missouri River 
 and its tributaries between Sioux City and Bismarck is estimated at $2,500,000. 
 Below Sioux City, iucluding the damage done at Omaha, Council Bluffs, Kansa.* 
 City, and the great overflow on both sides of the Missouri between these cities and. 
 Saint Louis, the amount of loss is computed at $1,500,000. 
 
 FLOOD OF 1882. 
 
 In the spring of 1882 another destructive flood spread over the Lower 
 Mississippi Valley. Its damage in the States of Mississippi and Arkan- 
 sas was described in the following debate in the United States Senate, 
 February 23, 1882 : 
 
 Mr. George. Mr. President, I should like to be indulged in making a remark or 
 two explanatory of the magnitude of the disaster referred to in the joint resolution. 
 
 The district overflowed from the breaking of the levee embraces all the Mississippi 
 Delta between Memphis and Vicksburg, about 15 miles in length and about 40 miles 
 in breadth. All of it is either now under water or will be in a short time. I desire 
 also to state, for the information of the Senate, that four-fifths of the population 
 which inhabit that district is composed of colored laborers, who have not the means 
 of support during the time when this overflow will necessarily interrupt labor. 
 
 Mr. IXGALLS. What is the estimated number of laborers who have been rendered 
 destitute by this inundation? 
 
 Mr. George. They inhabit a district about 150 miles long by about 40 wide. I sup- 
 pose there must be from 50,000 to 75,000 inhabitants in that district. 
 
 Mr. Teller. What proportion of them will be rendered destitute f 
 
 Mr. George. Four-fifths. I desire also to state, for the information of Senators who 
 are not familiar with the length or duration of an overflow in the Mississippi bot- 
 toms, that it is not an attair of a day or a week. The overflows in that section of the 
 Mississippi bottoms generally continue from four to six weeks before there is a sub- 
 sidence of the waters, and during all that time there is a total suspension of all 
 labor ; the water gets all over the whole country. 
 
 I have confined my statement to the destitution in Mississippi. There are contigu- 
 ous districts on the western bank of the Mississippi River, in the State of Arkansas, 
 that sufler from the same overflow. The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Garland] -will 
 make a statement upon that subject. 
 
 I shall ask to have the joint resolution referred to the Committee on the Improve- 
 ment of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, in the hope that that committee may 
 act upon it with promptness, as the matter will not admit of delay. 
 
 Mr. Garl.\nd. The information that the Senator from Mississippi gives in reference 
 to his own State applies exactly to the State of Arkansas, which is in front of the over- 
 flowed Mississippi River. The intelligence that I receive from that portion of the State 
 of Arkansas through telegrams, letters, and newspapers represents the destruction 
 there as widespread and as absolutely appalling and unprecedented. The overflow 
 has taken barns and granaries, and has swept away the last stock the farmers and 
 planters of that country owned and had to live upon. 
 
 I am not prepared in luy own mind to say j ust exactly what relief or what measure 
 of relief Congress can or should afford, but certainly there is now a just demand for 
 relief, if it is in the power of Congress to grant it. 1 hope the joint resolution will
 
 30 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES 
 
 l)e referred to the comiuittee indicated by the Senator from Mississippi, and that that 
 ^oniniittee may see proper to j(ive it early consideration and report some measure for 
 the relief of those «ntferinj? people. 
 
 Mr. Hami'Tox. I just came into the Senate when the joint resolution was sent to 
 the Clerk's desk and read, and, as I am very familiar with that section of country, 
 having been there a great deal, I wish to make a statement in regard to it. 
 
 The area of land which will be overflowed if the river rises as high as it has done 
 formerly -will cover the richest i)ortion of the Mississippi Valley on the Arkansas side 
 and on the Mississipjii side. I am more familiar with it on the Mississippi side than 
 on the Arkansas side ; but it will cover the most productive and finest cotton-grow- 
 ing territory in the whole State. I have known the river to be at that point some- 
 times nearly laO miles wide, for it covers from the Yazoo hills on the one side to the 
 Arkansas blulfs on the other, and in that whole sectioTi of country, if the river is as 
 high as these dispatches say it is, there will hardly be any land at all above overflow. 
 There are only a few spots in that great Mississippi bottom which are above over- 
 flow, and the destruction not only of stock, but of the incoming crop, will be so great 
 that I have no hesitation in saying that the dispatches from the governor of Missis- 
 sippi give but a faint idea of the destitution and starvation that will follow there. 
 
 My friend from Mississippi thinks that there are 75,000 people in this area covered. 
 I think ho has underestimated the number very much. 
 
 Mr. Geoiuje. I spoke of the Mississippi side. 
 
 Mr. Hampton. On the.Mississippi side I think the numbers would be very much 
 larger than that. Nearly the whole of those people are colored people; they rent 
 the land and the loss will fall upon them. They have made no provisions at all for 
 immediate sustenance, and unless some aid can be given jtromptly, I have no ques- 
 tion that there will be starvation and infinite sutlering in that whole country. 
 
 FLOOD OF 1883. 
 
 In the spring of 1883 an unusnally destructive flood in the Ohio 
 Kiver Valley .submerged a large portion of the city of Cincinnati, which 
 was very forcibly described in the folluwing dispatch from Murat Hal- 
 stead, February 16, 1883: 
 
 The loss of life has not been very great, bat the destruction of household property 
 is enormous, and clothing, sheltering, and feeding the poor who have fled from their 
 homes will strain all resources. The care of property in the submerged district is a 
 great task, and our military companies are out at night patrolling the streets. The 
 school-houses are crowded with fugitives. The coal supply of the city is under water. 
 The water-works are overwhelmed. The gasworks are submerged. Our condition is 
 in many resi)ects critical, but nothing but a sudden and immense rain-fall beyond all 
 exaniple can prevent our relief by the fall of the river. There are reniarkal)le coin- 
 cidences between this monstrous rise in the Ohio and the December overflows of the 
 Rhine and Danube. The parallel between the Rhine especially and the Ohio in the 
 origin, progress, extent, and duration of the floods is very striking, and the corre- 
 spondence in the two cases may be traced also in the intelligent compassion and re- 
 markable liberality with which the sufl'erings of those made homeless, whether on the 
 Rhine or the Ohio, were regarded and relieved by the enlightened and the benevolent. 
 
 The above are but illustrations of the frequent and wholesale destruc- 
 tion and desolation caused by the floods throughout the length and 
 breadth of the great valley. But they are sufficient to show that these 
 floods i)ay no attention to State lines and that they are national iu ex- 
 tent and magnitude.
 
 VIII.-NATIOxNAL FEATURES. 
 
 NATIONAL IN EXTENT. 
 
 A river system iu which tweiity-oue States aud Territories have a di- 
 rect business interest, aud nearly all others an indirect interest; which 
 intersects the great productive center of the continent, and by means 
 of cheap transportation brings the producer and consumer into easy 
 communication ; which supplies a connecting link between internal and 
 international commerce, is something more than sectional — it is em- 
 phatically national. The navigable portions alone of the Mississippi 
 and tributaries are distributed among the States substantially as follows : 
 
 Miles. i Miles. 
 
 Arkansas i 2,375: Indian Territory ' 720 
 
 Missouri i 1,950 ; Minnesota \ ! 660 
 
 Louisiana ' 1, 925 ' Ohio ; 550 
 
 Mississippi 1, 380 Wisconsin 520 
 
 Montana 1,210 Texas 440 
 
 Dakota : 1, 280 Xebraska 400 
 
 Illinois 1,270 West Virginia , 390 
 
 Tennessee 1, 260 ' ! Pennsylvania 250 
 
 Kentucky I 1,230 : Kansas 240 
 
 Indiana I 840 / Alabama 200 
 
 Iowa 1 830 1 1 
 
 They also supply facilities for inland inter-communication by water 
 between the following cities : 
 
 Saint Paul, Minn. Nashville, Tenu. Memphis, Tenn. 
 
 Pittsburgh, Pa. Little Rock, Ark. Minneapolis, Minn. 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio. Decatur, Ala. Shreveport, La. 
 
 Louisville, Ky. Cairo, 111. Sioux City, Iowa. 
 
 Omaha, Nebr. New Orleans, La. Qniucy, 111. 
 
 Peoria, 111. Saint Louis, Mo. Parkersburgh, W. Va. 
 
 Vicksburg, Miss. Kansas City, Mo. Dubuque, Iowa. 
 
 La Ciosse, Wis. Keokuk, Iowa. Jefterson City, Mo. 
 
 Wheeling, W. Ya. Knosville, Tenn. 
 
 And several hundred other cities and important commercial towns scat- 
 tered, as they are, over different sections of a great and broad country. 
 
 If to these rivers we add the existing supplements, we find that they 
 supply facilities for inland water inter-communication between twenty- 
 five States and Territories. 
 
 Adding the projected or propo.sed supplements above described, they 
 will supply the facilities for twenty-nine States aud Territories. 
 
 And adding to the above other States and Territories which rest upon 
 the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, we find that the Mississippi aud tribu- 
 taries, with existing aud proposed supplements, aud the oceans on the 
 east and west, will permit water inter-communication between forty-one 
 States aud Territories, or all but five of the total forty-six States and 
 Territories of the eutire Union.
 
 32 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 NATIONAL IN LAW. 
 
 This liver system is also national in law. The doctrine as declared 
 by the Siii^renie Court of the United States in the case of the Daniel 
 Ball, 10 Wallace, 557, is as follows : 
 
 Those rivers inust be regarded as public navigable rivers in law which are navigable 
 in fact. And they are navigable in fact when they are used, or are susceptible of lie- 
 ing used, in their ordinary condition, as higliways for commerce, over which trade 
 and travel are, or may be, conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on 
 water. And they cmstitute navigabK' water- of the United States, within the mean- 
 ing of the act-" of Congres-', iu contradistinction from the navigable w.itera of the 
 States, when they form in their ordinary condition, l>y themselves or by uniting 
 with other waters, a continued highway over which commerce is, or may be, carried 
 on with other St »tes or fon-igu countries in the customary modes in which such com- 
 merce is conducted by water. 
 
 NATIONAL IN BENEFITS. 
 
 In its benefits, also, this net-work of water-ways is national. The 
 consumer of the East and the producer of the West have a common in- 
 terest in cheap transportation and cheap food. The recognition of this 
 principle on the floor of the United States Senate should be cousidered 
 by every one who, through wrong information, superficial observation, 
 or sectional feeling, imagines that the improvement of the Mississippi 
 Kiver is a local movement. We refer to the tribute by Senator Bayard, 
 who said iu the United States Senate in June, 1880, in speaking of the 
 improvements already made at the mouth of the river : 
 
 The results of such a work, if maintained according to present promise and to all 
 reasonable hope, are magnificent and incalculable in their benefit, not simply to a 
 State but to the entire Union, and not simply to the entire Union, but you may say 
 the benefits are world-wide. It io making food cheaper for this world that the Mis- 
 sissippi River can perform its great carrying functions to bring t he vast crops of prod- 
 ucts of the wheat lands, and the granary of this country and of the world, into the 
 use of mankind in general. 
 
 NATIONAL IN DAMAGE. 
 
 As shown in a previous chapter the periodical floods of the valley 
 are national in the extent and magnitude of their destruction. They 
 are also beyond the jurisdiction and control of individual States, as 
 was very clearly stated in the following extracts from a speech on this 
 subject by Hon. E. AV. Robertson, of Louisiana, in the House of Rep- 
 resentatives May 18, 1882: 
 
 On the west bank of the Mi-ssissippi there was built a continuous line of levee ex- 
 tending from Louisiana into Arkansas. For about fifteen years past the levee has 
 been broken for several miles above and below the boundary line dividing the two 
 States. Arkansas, for some reason, is indifferent to repairs at this particular place. 
 The result is that the floods which sweep through the gap in Arkansas continue down 
 through Louisiana in the roar of her system of levees, thereby nullifying all the 
 efforts of the latter State to secure protection. Does any one contend that Louisiana 
 has jurisdiction over Arkansas ? The two States can not even make a binding agree- 
 ment on the 8ul)ject of protection, for the Constitution expressly denies their right 
 to enter into treaties between themselves. It is, then, worse than idle to tell us of 
 the lower valley to protect ourselves. » * » Can States combine to accomplish 
 this protection, "to provide for the common defense and general welfare?" Not at 
 all, for they are exi)re8sly ])rohibited by section 10 of the same article, which says: 
 "No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation." 
 
 How, then, can the States of the lower valley agree upon a uniform plan of pro- 
 tection from their common enemy, the great and national Mississippi in flood-time ? 
 They can not. They are powerless. They are helpless and subject to the mercy of 
 the floods. 
 
 They invoke, then, the aid of that Federal power whose fundamental object is the 
 protection of its own citizens and its own States.
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 33 
 
 NATIONAL IN POLITICS. 
 
 The political features of the Mississippi and tributaries are also na- 
 tional. If to the Eepreseiitatives of the people in Congress from the 
 sixteen Valley States aod Territories were added those from PeunsjT- 
 vania, West Virginia, Alabama, and Texas, which States are inter- 
 sected by and have an extensive business interest in the navigable 
 waters of these rivers, the result would show a very large majority in 
 the House of Representatives. But it is unnecessary to urge this point, 
 for all sections have a common interest in the great water-ways which 
 intersect the granary of a common country. Instead of being an ele- 
 ment of strife and sectional antagonism, the Mississippi is a bond of 
 union. In this respect nature has accomplished for the people of the 
 great interior what President Washington was so anxious to see accom- 
 plished for a similar purpose in another direction by artificial and costly 
 means. We refer to his favorite project of uniting, by a canal, the 
 Potomac River and a tributary of the Ohio, so as to bind, in commercial 
 and political ties, the Mi8sissipi)i Valley to the Atlantic States. To 
 create a similar bond of union between the Pacific States and the rest 
 of the country Congress, at the close of the late civil war, granted to 
 the Union and Central Pacific Railway Companies 20,000,000 acres of 
 l)ublic lands, and loaned $53,121,632 in bonds. 
 
 Nature has, without cost, bound together the many States of the 
 Il^orth and South and of the great interior in a perfect net-work of com- 
 mercial ties. 
 
 The problem of new and enlarged commercial intercourse and fellow- 
 ship between the two sections is not a diflicult one, if we look to the 
 Mississippi for a solution. This was demonstrated a few years ago by 
 the enthusiastic response from both sides of the House of Representa- 
 tives to the remarks by General Garfield, closing the debate on the 
 Mississippi River Commission bill, with the following liberal sentiment : 
 
 I rejoice in any occasion which enables Representatives from the North and from 
 the South to unite in an unpartisan effort to promote a great national interest. [Ap- 
 plause.] Such an occasion is good for us both. And when we can do it without the 
 sacrifice of our convictions and can benefit millions of our fellow-citizens, and can 
 thereby strengthen the bonds of the Union, we ought to do it with rejoicing ; for in 
 doing so we inspire orr people with larger and more generous views, and help to con- 
 firm for them and for our children to our latest generations the indissoluble Union 
 and the permanent grandeur of this Republic. I shall vote for this bill. [Applause 
 on both sides of the House. J 
 
 OPINIONS OF NATIONAL STATKSMEN. 
 
 John C. Calhoun, the strictest of strict constructionists, said of it, in 
 1845, in a speech delivered at Memphis : 
 
 The invention of Fulton has, in reality, for all practical purposes, converted the 
 Mississippi with all its tributaries into an inland sea. Regarding it as such I am 
 prepared to place it on the same footing with the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, the Chesa- 
 peake and Delaware bays, and the Lakes in reference to the superintendence of the 
 General Government over its navigation. It is manifest that it is far beyond the 
 power of individual or separate States to supervise it. 
 
 Vice-President Hendricks, in a speech delivered in 1866, said : 
 
 That river is under the control of the Government for almost every purpose. It is 
 a great channel of commerce ; it is the nation's river ; it does not belong to Louisiana, 
 it^oes not belong to Mississippi ; it is the river of all the States. 
 
 General Garfield, while in the House of Representatives, said, in sup- 
 port of the bill creating the Mississippi River Commission: 
 
 I believe that one of the grandest of our material and national interests, one that 
 is national in the largest material sense of that word, is the Mississippi River and its 
 
 7204 3
 
 34 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 navigable tributaries. It is the most gigantic single uatniaHVatnre of our conti- 
 ueiit, far trausnMuling the glory of the ancient Nile or of any other river on the 
 earth. The statchnianship of America must grapple the i)robleni of this mighty 
 stream. It is too vast for any State to handle; too uuicli for any authority less than 
 that of the nation itself to manage. And I believe the time will come when the 
 liberal-minded statesmanship of tliis country wnll devise a wise and comi)reht'usive 
 system that will harness the powers of this great river to the material interests of 
 America, so that not only all the people who live on its banks and the banks of its 
 continents, but all the citizens of the Republic, whether dwellers in tiie central val- 
 ley or on the slope of either ocean, will recognize the importance of presi-rviug and 
 perfecting this great natural and material bond of national union between the North 
 and South, a bond to be so strengthened by commerce and intercourse that it can 
 never be severed. [Applanse.] 
 
 Ill bis letter of July 10, 1880, accepting the noiuination for the Pres- 
 idency, General Garfield further said: 
 
 The Mississippi River, with its great tributaries, is of such vital importance to so 
 many millions of people that the safety of its navigation requires exceptional consid- 
 eration. In order to secure to the nation the control of all is waters. President 
 JeflVraon negotiated the purchase of a vast territory extending from the Gulf of 
 Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 The wisdom of Congress should be invoked to devise some plan by which the great 
 river shall cease to be a terror to those who dwell upon its banks, and l>y which its 
 shipping may safely carry the industrial products of twenty-five millions of people. 
 
 In his annual message to Congress in 1880 President Hayes said : 
 
 A comprehensive improvement of the Mississippi and its tributaries is a matter of 
 transcendent importance. These great water ways comprise a system of inland trans- 
 portation spread like net- work over a large portion of the United States, and navigable 
 to the extent of many thousands of miles. Producers and consumers alike have a com- 
 mon interest in such nnequaled facilities for cheap transportation. Geographically, 
 conimercially, and politically, they are the strongest tie between the various sections 
 of the country. These channels of communication and interchange are the property 
 of the nation. Its jurisdiction is paramount over their waters, and the plainest prin- 
 ciples of public interest require their intelligent and careful supervision, with a view 
 to their protection, improvement, and the enliancement of their usefulness. 
 
 President Cleveland, in a speech delivered at Memphis, Tenn., Oc- 
 tober 15, 1887, said : 
 
 There flows past your city our nation's great river, which you rightly regard as a 
 most important factor in your present and future welfare, and which I believe is uni- 
 versally recognized as a proper object of governmental protection and improvement. 
 To Memphis and to every other city on its banks the improvement of this vast high- 
 way of commerce is so essential that they should be interested in having this and 
 other proper work of the same description considered upon their merits, and freed 
 from schemes sometimes questionable in their character and often extravagant in 
 their demands.
 
 
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 7204 face p. 34
 
 INTERNATIONAL FEATURES 
 
 THE 3S<EISSISSlm. 
 
 AMERICAN COUNTRIES ON THE SOUTH. 
 Proposed Inter-Ocean Routes and Steamship Lir 
 
 FOREIGN OOMMBRCB 
 SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 WK 
 
 ■>*.« 
 
 Im, 
 
 7204 face p. 36
 
 IX.-LNTERNATIONAL FEATURES. 
 
 AMERICAN COUNTRIES AT THE SOUTH. 
 
 The Lower Mississippi is the truuk line of the 16,090 miles of navi- 
 gable waterways of this great river system. After intersecting or bor- 
 dering twenty-one States and Territories of the great interior it con- 
 verges and terminates at the Gulf of Mexico. Facing its mouth there 
 are on the continent south of the United States fifteen Spanish-Ameri- 
 can Republics, the Portuguese-American Empire of Brazil, and four 
 European colonies, which have a total population of 45,000,000 consum- 
 ers and an area of 8,000,000 square miles, or more than double that of 
 the United States. 
 
 Also, facing its mouth are the various West India Islands, with an 
 area of about 100,000 square miles and a population of about 4,000,000 
 souls. 
 
 The names and ownership of the forty principal West India Islands 
 and the several countries on the continent are, in detail, as follows : 
 
 Spanish West Indies : Cuba, Porto Rico, and Isle of Pines. 
 
 British West Indies : Jamaica, Bahamas, Trinidad, Grenada, St. Vin- 
 cent, St. Lucia, Antigua, Barbuda, St. Christopher, Caymans, Virgin 
 Islands, Tobago, Grenadines, Barbadoes, Dominica, Moutserrat, Xevis 
 and Rodonda, and Anguilla. 
 
 French West Indies : Martinique, Desirade, Les Salutes, Guadeloupe, 
 and Marie Galante. 
 
 Dutch West Indies : St. Martin, Saba, Oruba, St. Eustatius, Curacoa, 
 and Buen Ayre. 
 
 Danish West Indies : St. Thomas, Santa Cruz, and St. John. 
 
 Swedish West Indies : St. Bartholomew. 
 
 Venezuelan West Indies : Marguerite, Les Siete Hermanos, and Tor- 
 tuga. 
 
 Independent West Indies : Hayti and San Domingo. 
 
 Central American republics : Guatemala, San Salvador, Costa Rica, 
 Honduras, and Nicaragua. 
 
 Central American colony : British Honduras. 
 
 Mexican Republic : Comprising twenty-seven states, one territory, 
 and a federal district. 
 
 South American republics: United States of Colombia, Chili, Argen- 
 tine Republic, Ecuador, Uruguay, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Para- 
 guay. 
 
 South American Empire: Brazil. 
 
 South American colonies: British Guiana, French Guiana, and Dutch 
 Guiana. 
 
 In view of this colossal showing one would naturally expect to find a 
 
 large portion of the foreign commerce of the United States to be with 
 
 the neighboring sister American nations. 
 
 What are the facts ? 
 
 35
 
 36 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 OUR FOREIGN C0M3IERf;E OF THE FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 The foreign commerce of the United States during the first century 
 of its existence was mainly with Europe. The course of trade at the 
 end of one hundred years is as follows : 
 
 Pfir cent. 
 
 Exports to Europe Jind atljacent countries, ou the east •"'1 
 
 Exports to American coiiutries, on the south 10 
 
 Exports to British America, on tlie north 5 
 
 Exports to Pacitic countries, on the west 4 
 
 The one-sided nature of our commerce may be seen by a glance at 
 the accompanying diagram illustrating the general course of steamship 
 lines. 
 
 Our exports are also unsyni metrical in quality, 74 per cent, being the 
 product of agriculture and only 15 per cent, the products of manufact- 
 ure. 
 
 Of our total annual manufactures, which during the census year end- 
 ing 1880 were $5,309,579,191 in value, but 2 per cent, finds foreign 
 markets. This is indeed an astonishing state of atfairs, a defect in our 
 commercial relations with the outside world, which must be cured, a 
 weak spot which must be built up and strengthened. 
 
 The annual foreign commerce of the various American countries south 
 of the United States during the last attainable year were, according to 
 a recent report by Secretary Frelinghuyseu, in response to a Senate 
 resolution of inquiry, as follows : 
 
 Mexico 
 
 Central America 
 
 British Honduraa 
 
 UuitL'd States of Colombia. 
 
 Venezuela 
 
 Britisb Guiana 
 
 French Guiana 
 
 Dutch Guiana 
 
 Brazil 
 
 Total imports 
 of merchandise. 
 
 Uruguay 
 
 Argentine Republic. 
 
 Chili 
 
 Bolivia 
 
 Peru 
 
 Ecuador 
 
 Spanish West Indies 
 
 Hayti and San Domingo. 
 
 Total 
 
 $t2, 
 
 10, 
 
 1, 
 
 23, 
 
 10, 
 
 10, 
 
 1, 
 
 1, 
 
 79, 
 
 17, 
 
 80, 
 
 53, 
 
 12. 
 
 6, 
 
 62, 
 
 7, 
 
 579, 000 
 000, 000 
 164,000 
 000, 000 
 859, UOO 
 
 000, 000 
 
 600, 000 
 400, 000 
 109, 000 
 919,000 
 436. 000 
 301, 000 
 900, 000 
 0(10, 000 
 000, OUO 
 8(15, 000 
 724, 000 
 
 Imports from 
 United States. 
 
 420, 859, 000 
 
 $12, 704, 000 
 
 3, 178, OuO 
 
 430, 000 
 
 6, 380, 000 
 
 2, 4i;7, 000 
 1, 81^4, 000 
 
 102, 000 
 
 320, 000 
 
 8, 695, 000 
 
 1, 368, 000 
 
 5, 075, 000 
 
 3, 267, 000 
 
 i, 671,0()0 
 
 629, 000 
 
 13, 13,5, 000 
 
 4, 054, 000 
 
 64, 090, 000 
 
 In brief, we supply but 15 per cent, of the demand, or about one- 
 seventh part. 
 
 It is ea.sy to understand why we control so insignificant a i)ortion of 
 this valuable trade when we examine the record of our exports to those 
 countries from Xew Orleans, which port represents the principal south- 
 ern outlet of the Mississippi Valley. The value of exports of domestic 
 merchandise from New Orleans to the various and neighboring Amer- 
 ican countries and islands on the south was, during the fiscal year end- 
 ing June 30, 1886, as follows:
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 37 
 
 From New Orleans to — 
 
 Argentine Eepublic 
 
 Brazil 
 
 Costa Kica 
 
 Onatemala 
 
 Honduras 
 
 Nicaragua 
 
 San Salvador 
 
 Chili 
 
 Danish West Indies 
 French West Indies 
 
 French Guiana 
 
 British West Indies , 
 
 British Guiana 
 
 British Honduras 
 
 Amoont. 
 
 $7, 215 
 
 32. 251 
 40, 992 I 
 150, 127 ! 
 63,841 I 
 
 9,776 
 
 152, 372 
 
 From New Orleans to — 
 
 Amount. 
 
 Hayti 
 
 
 
 $562, 572 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cuba 
 
 29, 618 
 
 
 
 
 14, 896 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 1, 063, 660 
 
 III other words, the principal port on the southern coast of the United 
 States is not doing its duty in supplying the Spanish and Portuguese 
 American markets with our surplus products and manufactures. Nat- 
 ure has done everything to stimulate trade in this direction, but for 
 some unaccountable reason it has been neglected by the United States. 
 
 Another astonishing defect in our foreign trade relations may be seen 
 by reference to the total commerce of the various countries surrounding 
 the Pacific Ocean and facing the west coast of the United States. 
 
 During a recent year their total annual imports and the share of the 
 same supplied by the United States were as follows : 
 
 Total 
 imports from 
 all nations. 
 
 Japan 
 
 Chiua 
 
 Honjc-Kong 
 
 Philippine Islands 
 
 Dutch India 
 
 Siam 
 
 Straits Settlements 
 
 Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania 
 
 Total 
 
 $29, 296, 000 
 
 112, 632, 000 
 
 115, 834, 000 
 
 18, 032, 000 
 
 55, 485, 000 
 
 6, 500, 000 
 
 73. 174, 000 
 
 118, 600, 000 
 
 529, 553, 000 
 
 Of this total demand we supplied but $20,497,000 in value, or less 
 than 4 per cent. 
 
 Tbfc above is the result of our foreign commerce during the first cent- 
 ury of the Republic. What now is the outlook for the future? 
 
 OUR FOREIGN COMMERCE OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 A question of transcendent importance to the United States to-day 
 is the development of new foreign markets for our surplus manufact- 
 ures. It is useless to look to Europe for adequate outlets, for it is 
 well supplied with manufactures of its own and has a surplus for export. 
 We must rather look to the open, unsupplied, and inviting trade fields 
 of Spanish and Portuguese America. 
 
 The question arises, how may these open and profitable fields be im- 
 proved ? Nature and common sense, the producer and consumer, all 
 demand that the neighboring Mississippi Valley, with its great water- 
 ways, terminating at the Gulf, and with its surplus grain and provis- 
 ions, take the lead in this new commercial movement. Direct and cheap
 
 38 THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS NAVIGABLE TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 transportation by way of the river and Gulf in place of indirect ship- 
 ments from the valley up and down the Alleghanies and then around 
 and back again to the Indies, Mexico, and ISouth and Central America, 
 is the true solution of this commercial problem. New York is chiefly 
 occupied with Euroi)eau trade, but the port at the mouth of the Alis- 
 si6sii)pi has the time as well as the favorable situation to make a success 
 of American foreign commerce. It devolves upon her and the other 
 trade centers of the valley to take the lead. The material interests of 
 the entire country require it. 
 
 A few weeks before his assassination President Garfield said in an 
 address to the graduating class at Annapolis : "The Pacific is yet to 
 be opened, and you gentlemen will be the ones to scout it for us." The 
 significance of this remark will be appreciated by reference to the pre- 
 ceding trade statistics, and the diagram showiDg the Isthmian barrier 
 which now stands in the pathway of direct water communication be- 
 tween the great Mississipi)i Valley and the Pacific. 
 
 The opening of the Isthmus of Tehuautepec will shorten the water 
 route between the mouth of the Mississippi and Hong-Kong 10,502 
 miles each way, or 21,004 miles on the round voyage, for steamers be- 
 tween those two ports must now go around distant Cape Horn. In 
 brief, the piercing of this isthmus for the transit of ships will place 
 the Mississippi Valley in direct water communication with Australia, 
 the countries of the Orient, and the west coast of Central and South 
 America. Then we may expect our due share ot that valuable foreign 
 trade of which the United States now controls but about 4 per cent, 
 and in which Xew Orleans has no participation. 
 
 The adequate development of these long-neglected foreign markets of 
 the three Americas on the south and of the Oriental countries on the 
 west is the great material problem now awaiting solution. 
 
 These inviting trade fields constitute what may appropriately be termed 
 our foreign commerce of the second century, and should, without further 
 delay, be occupied with our surplus products and manufactures. 
 
 In his memorable tribute to America in 1878 Gladstone said, in con- 
 trasting the commercial future of England and the United States: 
 
 It is she alone who at a coming time can and probably will wrest from us that com- 
 mercial primacy. We have no title; I have no inclination to murmur at the prospect. 
 If she acquires it she will make the acquisition by the right of the strongest ; but in 
 this instance the strongest means the best. She will ])robal)ly become what we are 
 now, the head servant in the great household of the world, the employer of all employed, 
 because her service will be th^raost and the ablest. We have no more title against 
 her than Venice, or Genoa, or Holland has had against us. 
 
 There is no better way to facilitate the attainment of the "commer- 
 cial primacy *' here prophesied than by developing the international 
 features of the Mississippi River and Valley.
 
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