for the fact that nearly all modern nations are expending extraordinarily large sums of money in constructing artificial waterways? Is it because they have outlived their usefulness, or that they are no longer important factors in promoting commerce, or is it on account of the antiquated methods in use upon them? Certainly not. All progressive nations use artificial waterways as a means for transportation of bulky and slow moving freight. Within the last ten years the Canadian Government has expended several millions of dollars in improving its waterways. England has constructed the Manchester ship canal at an expense of $75,000,000. Germany has constructed the Baltic and North Sea canal at a cost of $37,122,000. In 1900, the Elbe-Trave canal was completed at a cost of $5,831,000, and many other smaller canals, similar to the proposed enlarged Erie, Oswego and Champlain canals, have been constructed recently and are in successful operation in Europe. The proposed improvement can go forward within a year or less from the time of the approval of the law at the next general election.

The United States Government has jurisdiction of the waters of the Hudson river, and will undoubtedly make provision for dredging that river to Troy in some of its colossal river and harbor appropriations, if the people along the Hudson river will present the matter to Congress. It is quite likely that an appropriation will be made by Congress to deepen the channel down through the Buffalo harbor into the Niagara river, as a survey is now being made by the United States engineers. All commercial interests are agreed that the Thousand Ton Barge Canal is the largest canal that can be economically operated in this State and for which an adequate supply of water may be obtained.

There are insuperable difficulties to the operation of a ship canal. First, there is doubt as to the adequacy of the water supply. Then again, it is a well-known fact that ocean-going vessels must be strongly built to withstand the storms of the ocean, and the amount of dead weight in such vessels is much greater than in lake-going vessels, built to navigate the Great Lakes. Lake vessels have more dead

weight than canal barges, which will navigate the still waters of artificial waterways. Ocean-going vessels are therefore much more costly in proportion to their carrying capacity, than are lake vessels, and lake vessels are much more costly in proportion to their carrying capacity than will be thousand-ton barges. Furthermore ocean-going vessels draw from 25 to 35 feet of water; lake-going vessels draw from 15 to 20 feet of water, and thousand-ton barges will draw from 10 to 10 1-2 feet of water. If a ship canal were constructed from Lake Ontario to the Hudson river, it would not be profitable for either ocean-going or lakegoing vessels to undertake to navigate it because the delays incident to canal navigation would be ruinous to the investment of capital in such vessels. The experience of vessels navigating the Suez canal, which is only 96 miles long and more than half that distance made up of natural bodies of water, is such that the masters of many vessels prefer to round Cape of Good Hope rather than endure the long delays in passing the Suez canal.

Neither would the navigation of such a canal be profitable for lake-going vessels for the same reason. Both ocean-going and lake-going vessels must sail rapidly to make any profit on the investment of capital in them at the low freight rates that are necessary to compete with the railroads. And I can hardly imagine a more ludicrous condition of things than to see two ocean-going vessels trying to pass each other in a ship canal and have a break or a blockade occur whereby they are delayed, while a modern freight train with a hundred thousand bushels of grain rushes by to the sea to overhaul some swiftly sailing oceangoing steamship at any one of the Atlantic ports.

In addition to these objections there is the still further objection that the harbors and channels of the Great Lakes and connecting rivers are not dredged deep enough to admit of any large ocean-going vessel navigating them. The maximum depth of the rivers and harbors of the Great Lakes as established and constructed by the United States Government is but 22 feet, and it would cost millions of money to deepen them so they could be navigated by ocean-going

vessels. It cost the United States Government six millions of dollars to construct the Eastern channel through the Bay of New York, which channel is 2,000 feet wide and 40 feet deep, and but a few miles long. This improvement was necessary to accommodate the larger type of ocean-going vessels, so that they could enter the port of New York. It will readily be seen that it would be entirely impracticable to undertake to deepen the rivers and harbors of the Great Lakes, so that ocean-going vessels could navigate them. Each of the three bodies of water requires its peculiar type of vessel and these types of vessels are the only types of vessels that can successfully navigate the bodies of water for which they were respectively constructed.

This is a complete answer to the advocates of a ship canal from Lake Ontario to tidewater. If there were no other objections to such a canal, it is not likely that rival Atlantic ports and competing railroad lines would consent to the construction of such a canal at national expense through the State of New York to divert foreign trade and domestic traffic from such rival ports and competing railroad lines to the port of New York and to the New York railways and waterways. From the inception of our canal system to the present time there have been those who have opposed every measure, designed to improve or extend it. At some periods the opposition has been so intense as to defeat any measure that was proposed, still there have been a sufficient number of New York's foremost citizens in favor of their maintenance thus far to preserve them from abandonment.

The spirit that inspired Dewitt Clinton has descended upon other generations of men, who have been inspired by lofty conceptions of duty and they have not failed to do their part to perpetuate the policy, which he inaugurated more than three quarters of a century ago. The inertia of conservatism has been an ever present barrier to the State's commercial progress.

However this is true of all progress. "Of all the difficulties," says Mr. Quincy, "that were met in establishing locomotion by steam, the obstruction offered by blind, stolid unreasoning conservatism was not the least." The progres

sive spirit of the age, however, that bridges rivers and tunnels mountains, that waters deserts and fertilizes plains, that cables oceans and explores continents, that makes cataracts propel the wheels of industry and utilizes the atmosphere as a vehicle for man's thoughts, that transforms the thunderbolt into controllable energy to serve man's purposes, will overcome all conservatism and keep New York at the head of the column of the states of the Union, in commerce and in all other essentials of a progressive civilization.

PAGE 45.

ERRATA

For "Col. William Bradstreet" read "Col. John Bradstreet." P. 113. "Largest single cargo of grain ever transported over water" should perhaps be qualified to read "over fresh water."

P. 114. P. 147. tion Co."

For "F. A. Mahan" read "A. T. Mahan."

For "Seneca Lake Navigation Co." read "Seneca Lock Naviga

P. 184. For "Ensel Bascom" (16th 1. from top) read "Ansel Bascom." P. 192. For "Mr. Blanchard, president of the Erie Railroad" read "George R. Blanchard, assistant to the president (afterward first vice-president)." P. 298. For "Morris K. Jessup" read "Morris K. Jesup." P. 341. For "J. Howard Mason" read "F. Howard Mason." P. 360. For "Patrick W. Callinan" read "Patrick W. Cullinan." For "Thomas B. Dun" read "Thomas B. Dunn." Pp. 378-9. For "October" 23 and 24 read "September" 23 and 24. P. 394. For "O. A. Bogardus" read "O. H. Bogardus."

P. 374.

P. 405. For "John K. Patten" read "John K. Patton."
For "Frank Brainerd" read "Frank Brainard."

P. 425.

INDEX