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28 OUR INLAND WATERWAYS.. Prof, Emory R. Johnson, of the, Un- iversity of Pennsylvania, delivered an address on the navigation resources of American waterways at the recent conference on the conservation of natural resources at the White House which was followed with information of the most interesting kind and from which the following was gleaned: The inland waterways of the United States comprise about 25,000 miles of navigated rivers, a nearly equal mile- age of streams that can be made mavi- gable by the improvement of their channels and the regulation of the flow of their waters, the five great lakes with a combined length of 1,410 miles, and 2,120 miles of operated canals. In addition to these rivers, lakes: and canals there are 2,500 miles of sounds, bays and bayous, capable of being converted by means of con- necting canals aggregating less than 1,000 miles in length, into an inner route for the coastwise traffic of the Atlantic and Gulf. The waterways in our country--rivers, canals, lakes and coastal channels--have an aggregate length of between 55,000 and 60,000 miles, and only about half of the en- tire mileage is now used for navi- gation. The total appropriations made by congress from the beginning to 1907 for the rivers of the Mississippi val- ley amount to $208,484,720. Over $17,- 000,000 of this total were expended upon the Mississippi river, between New Orleans and the Gulf, and had reference rather to maritime than to inland commerce; and on some rivers, | particularly the Mississippi, appropri- ations have been largely spent in levee construction and other work which, while indirectly helpful to nav- -igation, was intended primarily to pre- vent the rivers from destroying the lives and property of those living on or near its banks. With the excep- tion of the Ohio (including the Mo- nongahela'- and Kanawha) and Missis- sippi and a few other large rivers, relatively little has been expended since 1890 by the Federal government in bettering river navigation. The United States has spent during the past hundred years in regulating, im- proving and extending our system of natural waterways only 41%4 per cent of the amount private capitalists have invested in the construction. of rail- ways. Portions of 23 streams have been canalized to an aggregate length of 1,520 miles in 1906. This was a gain of but 442 miles over the figures for 1889, \ ¢ THe Marine. REVIEW The United. States. operated): 12 canals in 1906 with a combined, length of 78.19 miles.. These, however, were constructed to overcome obstructions to lake and river navigation,and were not independent waterways. In 1907 the Hennepin Canal from the Missis- sippi river at Rock Island to the Illinois river at its great bend was put in operation by the United States, and this waterway, 96 miles long, is the first of its kind to be managed by the Federal government. The only really important state canal is the Erie, now being modernized by the people of New York. Provision was made 21 years ago for the systematic collection and reg- ular publication of detailed statistics of the railroads and their traffic; but as yet congress has provided no ma- chinery for recording and making public the facts concerning either the © commerce moved or the craft oper- ated coastwise or upon our inland waterways. The highly valuable re- ports of the United States commis- sioner of navigation contain classified information regarding documented American vessels, the aggregate ton- nage of which is about six and a half million tons; but there is an equal tonnage of undocumented craft not included in the tables published by the bureau. of navigation. _Compara- tively few people are aware of the fact that American shipping has a total tonnage of over 13,000,000 tons gross register. Similarly, the publi- cations of the bureau of statistics con- tain no statistics of the mileage of gur inland waterways, no information as to the commerce moved coastwise, very little data regarding river traf- fic, and only such figures concerning canal shipments as are collected by the states. The statistics of the traf- fic on the great lakes are compiled, but even these statistics are acknowl- edged not to cover all the commerce moved on the lakes. The bureau of the census has about completed a re- port on "Transportation by Water" in the United States in 1906. This, like the preceding report of that bureau made in 1889, is a valuable document, exceptionally complete as regards American shipping, but necessarily less satisfactory regarding passenger and freight traffic, for the simple rea- son that full and accurate information regarding traffic cannot be obtained until machinery shall have 'been pro- vided for the systematic and daily re- cording of freight and movements. passenger The most rapid growth since 1889 has been in the commerce of the total of 27,856,641 tons for the rivers great lakes, which rose from 25,266, 978 tons of shipments, in, 1889, to 75, 610,690 tons in 1906. The port to port traffic of the Mississippi river and its tributaries in 1906 amounted to 19,531,093 tons of freight. There was also handled locally in and about the harbors, 8,325,548 tons, making a of the Mississippi valley. In 1899 the figures were 29,401,409, there having been a decrease of 1,544,768 tons in the 17 years. The freight handled on the other inland waterways of the United States experienced a very © large decline during this period, the total tonnage of freight carried havy- ing fallen from 11,221,224 tons in 1889 to 3,944,655 tons in 1906. In order to make the statement of trafic complete the passenger busi- ~ ness must be included. The highly efficient steamers of the lake lines car- ried 14,080,146 passengers in 1906; the figures for 1889 were 2,235,993, the increase during the 17 years being 529.7 per cent. There was also an increase of 30 per cent in the passen- ger traffic handled on the Mississippi river and its tributaries, the figure for 1889--10.858,894--having risen by 1906 to 14,122,241. It should be noted, however, that this increase was due more largely to the growth in short distance travel and in ferry traffic than to an increased patronage of the river steamboats operated over the longer routes. The passenger traffic on the other inland waterways -of the United States in 1889 is not known, but it amounted to 1,877,889 in 1906. A comparison of the United States with some of the leading countries of Europe as to the extent to which the navigation resources of each country have been developed, and as to the trafic uses made of inland waterways, will contribute to a clearer apprecia- tion of the facts concerning the United States. Great Britain. -- Although Great Britain is of small territorial area and has not followed the policy ad- hered to by the continental countries of retaining the inland waterways as public highways to be developd by the government, the mileage and traf- fic of her streams and canals are 'by no means insignificant. The tidal coast line of Great Britain, 3,900 miles in length, is supplemented by about 4,000 miles of canals and improved The traffic on these inland waterways, exclusive of the coastwise rivers. maritime commerce, amounted to 37,- 426,886 tons in 1898, the latest year