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18 PUBLIC POLICY DEMANDS A WATERWAY SYSTEM. At a"meeting of the Western Soci- ety of Engineers recently a very ex- haustive and interesting discussion of the national waterways system took place. The participants included Mr. "Lyman E. Cooley, dean of the engin- eering department of the University of Michigan, Mr. Charles T. Harvey, the - Hon. Joseph E. Ransdell, of the riv- ers and harbors committee of the house of representatives, and others. Mr. Cooley's discussion was particu- larly interesting as he went deeply into the possibilities of our existing waterways and the feasibility of a national waterways development, and which for breadth of 'conception has probably never been surpassed. He says in part as follows: "In 18991 undertook an investigation of the freight producing resources of . the United States and of British North America, with special reference to the great lakes considered as an arm of the sea, and of the conditions under which commerce would seek lake ports. "At that time I discovered that the existing commerce of the great lakes was 20% per cent measured in ton miles, of all the railways of the United States: that the domestic commerce of the United States carried by water was about 87 per cent (in ton miles) of that carried by all the railroads; that the over-sea tonnage, measured in ton miles, of commodities in the foreign trade was about 123 per cent of that of all the railroads of the United States, and that the aggregate service of water to the United States as a means of transportation was about 2.1 times of that by rail.. That is sufficient reason to justify consideration of these matters. "Take the United States as a geo- graphical and topographical unit; we have some 3,000,000 square miles of territory which may be divided into four characteristic regions. 'The por- tion east of the Allegheny mountains and east of Niagara Falls, if you please, extending from Maine to Flor- ida, may be called the Atlantic mari- time territory, having an area of about 375,000. square miles, or about 12% per cent of the total area, and an extreme length of 1,800 miles, and a width vary- ing from 100 to 350 miles. Going west- ward, the Mississippi valley lies be- tween the Allegheny and the Rocky mountains, and includes the upper lakes system above Niagara, the valley of the Red river of the North to the international' boundary, the Alabama river system as far east as Georgia, and the rivers of Texas. The upper TAE. MarINE. REVIEW lakes belong geographically and topographically to the Mississippi val- ley, and it is supposed to be a geologi- cal accident that they ever. spilled over Niagara and down the St. Lawrence. Prof. Gilbert, of the United States geological survey, holds that there is a tilting in the crust of the earth, by which the outlet will be restored to Chicago in about 2,500 years. But Chicago has been forehanded in dig- ging her canal in order to keep from being drowned out, and will no doubt be able to make sufficient enlargement to meet the conditions predicted by Prof. Gilbert as they shall develop. "The Mississippi valley as thus outlined comprises 1,725,000 square miles of territory, or 57% per cent of that of the total area; about 1,600 miles long from north to south and about 1,700 miles in extreme breadth; the greatest valley with the most uniform topography, and the greatest single area that was ever spread out in one plain without bar- riers, for the occupation of man. You have comprehended in the Mississippi valley and the Atlantic slope about 70 per cent of the total area of the United States, "The Pacific maritime territory em- braces about 5 per cent of the total area, or some 150,000 square miles, a mere margin on the Pacific and a por- tion of the lower Columbia river basin. Between the Pacific territory and the Rocky mountains is the great basin territory embracing an area of 750,000 square miles, or about 25 per cent of the total, a country with little water and sparse drainage; a little in the north by the head waters of the Co- lumbia river, a little in the southwest by the Colorado, and a little in the southeast by the Rio Grande; very el- evated, and very sparse in resources. "Again, the United States may be di- vided into two equal parts, by a north and south line lying generally between the 97th and tooth meridian. This may be called the arid line, and di- vides the country on the east, which may be cultivated by dry tillage, from that on the west, which requires irri- gation. 'This line leaves the Gulf of Mexico about longitude 97°, and crosses our northern boundary about 102° longitude. The average may be taken as 9914° longitude, west from Greenwich. The state of Kansas by statute has fixed the arid line at long- itude 99°; west of which the waters 'are appropriated for irrigation, and east of which the ordinary riparian law of humid country obtains. "The half of the United States west of the arid line contains only 200,000 square miles with sufficient water to 'miles, and is very poor in water ft. in the Red-Minnesota raise a crop without irrigation. The arid territory comprises 1,300,000 square re- sources. - "My object in-calling attention to the character of this region is to em- phasize the fact that the waterway dis- trict of the United States lies largely to the east of the arid line, and the territory to the west, which is sus- ceptible of waterway development, is limited to the humid section of 200,- 000 square miles and to perhaps 300,000 ~ square miles more in the basins of the upper Columbia and upper Missouri, which fortunately break well across the continent; and further, that a large percentage of the resources of this so- called arid region is tributary to these two great river systems, "To the east of the arid line is the humid territory of the Mississippi val- ley, an area averaging I,000 miles in width and 1,100 miles in length from north to south, or a total of 1,125,000 square miles. "The western border, at the arid line lies generally close to the 2,000-ft. contour of elevation, The eastern border soon descends from the mountain re- gion to elevations of 1,000 ft. or less in the head waters of the river sys- tems, The thalweg, or lowest line, ex- tends centrally from south to north, reaching a summit of less than 1,000 valley at Lake Stone and Traverse, descending thence northward to 720 ft. at Lake Winnipeg and to sea level in Hudson Bay. : "To the northeast is the branch thal- weg with its summit at Chicago, with a height of less than 600 ft., or an al- titude below the top of the Washing- ton monument in the District of Co- lumbia, and this altitude measures the height within 20 or 30 ft. of the lake plateau extending easterly to Niagara; thence the descent is to the northeast and to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. "We have, therefore, two very re- markable locations for waterways of the first class; one by the Mississippi and the Red-Minnesota divide north- ward, to the river and lakes system of British North America and to arc- tic sea level; the other by the Chicago divide and the great lakes northeast- erly to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the direction of Europe. "On this north and south base line we have a strip of territory 500 miles wide and sloping up to the 2,000-ft. contour on the west, and some 1,400 . miles long, threaded with rivers capable of commercial development. On _ the east we have another 500-mile strip, well watered and filled with numerous