money," as he who "goes down upon the great deep," equal justice demands equal expenditure for the benefit of both.

It is not enough to say that these hospitals would be beneficial; they are imperatively demanded by the mariners and the ship-owners of these "inland seas." There is every year much suffering, especially at the large towns of Buffalo, Oswego, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukie, all of which have a large steam and sailing marine, and are rapidly taking rank among our leading commercial cities. At these ports a large number of sailing vessels and steamers pass the winter; the number of sailors needing relief from suffering is thus increased. Some of these sailors are now often let out on hire, by the collectors of customs, to those wanting labor. No censure is intended of those officers: such course is forced upon them by the necessities of the case, but such a state of things ought not to continue. That these seamen could be comfortably provided for at a trifling cost to the government, by the expenditure of no more than the monthly contributions received from those engaged in the lake trade, if proper hospitals were erected, cannot be doubted.

One link in the chain of communication through the great lakes is yet to be supplied. This will be effected by the construction of a ship canal around the Falls of St. Mary, which will open to the lower lakes a navigation of fully a thousand miles. Our shipping will have an uninterrupted sweep over waters, which drain more than three hundred thousand square miles of a region abounding in mineral and agricultural resources. They may be water-borne nearly half way across the continent. The inexhaustible elements of wealth on the shores of Lake Superior will then become available. These, as yet, have hardly been touched, much less appreciated. Its fisheries are exhaustless. Nature has developed its mineral treasures upon a scale as grand as its waters. Its copper mines, the most extensive and productive in the world, furnishing single masses of the unparalleled weight of sixty tons, supply half of our consumption, from localities where, ten years since, the existence of a single vein was unknown. The iron mines near the shores of this lake surpass those of Sweden or Russia in extent, and equal them in the excellence of their material. It is predicted by acute metallurgists that its silver mines, though as yet undeveloped, will one day vie with those of Mexico.

While we behold with wonder the munificence of the gifts which Providence has showered upon this extensive region, thousands of miles in the interior from the ocean, we may also look forward with hopeful pride to achievements in art, and to commercial enterprise, commensurate in grandeur to those gifts, for their distribution throughout our country and the world. Reflection upon these bounteous gifts leads us to the conception of the means necessary to be adopted for their adequate use and enjoyment. When the Caughnawaga canal shall have been finished by the Canadian government, uniting the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain by a ship canal, thus completing the judicious and successful improvements on the St. Lawrence, so creditable to the enterprise and national views of that government; and when a ship canal shall be constructed from Champlain, by way of Whitehall, to the Hudson river-and commercial necessities will not be satisfied with less

when the waters of Superior thus flow into the Hudson, and the shipping of New York can touch upon the plain in which, with their branches interlocking, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence both have their origin, it will be a stride equivalent to centuries for the nation. A boundless field of commerce, and a vast expansion of transportation, will thereby be opened, and a development of wealth, such as the world has never witnessed, afforded.

The commercial results anticipated will not alone belong to those whose labor and enterprise may primarily effect them. Commerce, external and internal, by steamships on the ocean or on the lakes, by railroads over, or canals through, the land, is the advance guard of civilization. Whenever true commerce receives any new impulse, its beneficial effects accrue not only to the country from which it springs, but to the world. Its advancement is therefore one of the highest duties not only of enlightened statesmanship, but of philanthropy.

Although this report may have been elaborated more than might seem to have been designed by the resolutions or instructions under which it has been prepared, it is believed that no apology is necessary for thus devoting a few pages to the evidences of the rising wealth of this broad empire. So complete is the dependence of one section of the country upon another-so varied are the productions furnished in the different degrees of latitude embraced within the present bounds of the confederacy, and yet so admirably are the channels for transportation supplied by nature and art, that the prosperity of each section overflows into the other. This diffusion of prosperity, produced by community of interests and sympathies, freedom of trade and mutual dependence, is a sure pledge that our political union can never be broken.

The undersigned is not without hope that the facts presented in this report may tend to promote the struggling railroad interests of the West. That section needs capital, and greater facilities for transportation; the former creating the latter. The magnificent systems of railroads in course of construction, or projected, for the transportation of various productions from the country bordering on the Mississippi, so far south as St. Louis, must become important channels of trade. The political and moral benefit of railroads, as bands of union and harmony between the different sections of this broad empire, can only be measured by our posterity.

The securities issued the United States and on account of many of the railroads projected and in process of construction in the West, are seeking a market among the capitalists throughout the world. Ignorance of the resources of the country which will support the roads, and of the progress of the regions through which they pass, causes the depression of these stocks far below their value. The large amount of money, required to complete the works already contemplated, makes it a matter of high importance, which has not been lost sight of in this report, that such information should be given to the financial world as may remove some of the obstacles encountered by the great interests of the West, owing to ignorance of their true condition and resources which prevails in the money markets of Europe.

This ignorance is not confined to foreigners, but exists among a portion of our countrymen. The former cannot understand how railroads can be built, and made to pay, in comparatively new countries: the latter, living near the banks of great rivers, and on the Atlantic coast, where alone surplus capital, as yet, abounds, cannot appreciate the necessity existing for the constant creation of these iron lines. Commerce depends for its existence and extension upon channels afforded as its outlets. Primarily it follows what may be termed the natural routes, which are often not convenient ones.

Modern commerce has sought, and is constantly creating, at great expense, artificial channels; and this is so true of the United States, that such channels have, in a great degree, superseded the natural routes; for the reason that the direction of American internal commerce is between the agricultural, and the commercial and manufacturing districts, which are not connected by the two great outlets, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence rivers. Produce leaving Burlington, Iowa, following its natural outlet, is landed at New Orleans; or, leaving Detroit, and following its natural course, at Quebec. By the changing influence of artificial channels, it is now easily borne to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Baltimore.*

These are the facts which give so great consequence to the leading artificial lines of communication, such as the Erie canal, Erie railroad, Western railroad, the Pennsylvania railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, the Mobile and Ohio railroad, the Virginia works in progress for connecting the seaboard of that State with the western States; the South Carolina railroad; the several works in Georgia, and other roads and canals alluded to in the report.

Many portions of the country are without even natural outlets, by which to forward their products to the great leading or national routes of commerce. Their products are comparatively valueless, on account of the cost of transportation to market. The wheat and corn grown in the central portions of Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri, will not, on the spot, command one quarter their value in New York or the other markets on the Atlantic coast.

This difference in value, between the points of production and consumption, is owing to the cost of transportation. Hence the necessity of local as well as national channels to the development of our resources, and to the further creation and wider extension of inland commerce. Efforts to construct channels of commerce suited to its wants are now engrossing the energies and capital of the whole country. We have already constructed thirteen thousand miles of railroads, and have at least thirteen thousand more in progress. Our roads completed

have cost four hundred millions; those in progress will cost at least two hundred and sixty millions more-making an aggregate of six hundred and sixty millions. These roads are indispensable to keep alive and develop the industry of the country.

The cost of these roads will not be less than twenty thousand dollars per mile, requiring an annual outlay of about eighty millions for works in progress.

The capital of the country is not equal to this demand, without creating embarrassment in the ordinary channels of business; and unless we can avail ourselves of foreign capital, a portion of our works will be retarded, or we shall be involved in financial trouble.

We could borrow from England, Holland, and France, at comparatively low rates, the money needed for our works; and it is believed by statesmen that by a judicious extension of our commerce with other parts of Europe to which hitherto less attention has been paid than it deserves, inducements could be created for the investment of a portion of their large surplus capital in profitable works of internal improvement in this country, yielding high rates of interest, provided the foreign capitalists could be made to fully understand our condition, the necessity that exists for these works, and the prospect of their yielding a remunerating traffic. As it is, our works are mainly carried on by aid of foreign capital; but we have to pay, at times, exorbitant rates for the use of money, simply because so little is known of the objects, value, and productiveness of our works.

One course adopted by many of those who are constructing the roads in progress is to raise money upon what are called road bonds. These bonds are based upon the whole cost of the road, and are consequently perfectly safe investments. They are, notwithstanding, sold, on an average, as low as $5 or 87 cents on the dollar, and the capitalist is alone benefited by the advance.

One object which the undersigned has had in view in the preparation of this report, is to diffuse information that will secure an active. demand for our sound securities at the best rates, so that the publicspirited companies who are struggling under heavy burdens may receive what their securities are actually worth, and may not be compelled to heavy sacrifices. Our companies during the present year will be borrowers in the market for fifty millions, to be raised, in a great degree, on these railroad bonds. This amount will be borrowed mostly from European capitalists, at a discount of 12 to 15 per cent., making an aggregate loss of six to seven millions.

These bonds bear 7 per cent. interest.

The above discount brings the rate of interest on a bond having ten years to run to about 8 per cent. per annum.

These bonds are sold at the above rates, because so little is known of the projects, or of the real strength of the country. The purchasers demand a premium in the nature of insurance, and as soon as it is found there is no risk they demand and receive a premium equal to a perfect security.

It is no part of this report to advocate, in any way whatever, any particular railroad, or any particular route of commerce; but in view of the unquestionable necessity that exists for more knowledge

on these points, both at home and abroad-in view of the somewhat surprising fact that we have no published documents which contain any information in reference to our public works, calculated to throw light upon the subject, the undersigned has felt it his duty to meet, as far as possible, the wants of that great interest, although the shortness of time allowed, and the difficulty of obtaining materials, has rendered the work much less perfect than he could have wished. The accompanying report on the railroads and canals of the United States, prepared with the assistance of Mr. Henry V. Poor, the editor of the American Railroad Journal, New York, with his map annexed, to which reference has been made, may, it is hoped, prove to be of value not only to the railroad interest, but to the country generally, and important at this period to American and European capitalists.

The undersigned conceives that the position of our internal commerce, as illustrated in this report, may well be a subject of national pride. For the last few centuries, the attention of the world has been given to maritime commerce, created by the discovery of America and the ocean path to the East Indies. The world entered upon a new epoch when the great maritime powers struggled for dominion on the high seas. As an eloquent American writer* has said: "Ancient navigation kept near the coasts, or was but a passage from isle to isle; commerce now selects, of choice, the boundless deep.

"The three ancient continents were divided by no wide seas, and their intercourse was chiefly by land. Their voyages were like ours on Lake Erie-a continuance of internal trade. The vastness of their transactions was measured not by tonnage, but by counting caravans and camels. But now, for the wilderness, commerce substitutes the sea; for camels, merchantmen; for caravans, fleets and convoys."

Our time presents another epoch in commercial history. Internal trade resumes in this country its ancient dominion. Commerce now avails itself of lakes and rivers, as well as of the sea, and often substitutes the former for the latter. For merchantmen, it now substitutes steamboats; for fleets and convoys, canal boats and freight trains on railroads. Upon this commerce that of the sea depends. Its prosperity is the surest foundation of national power. As has been said by a philosophical historian, "An extensive and lively commerce would most easily, and therefore the soonest, be found on the banks of large rivers running through countries rich in natural productions. Such streams facilitate the intercourse of the inhabitants; and a lively trade at home, which promotes national industry, is always the surest foundation of national wealth, and consequently of foreign trade. The course of the latter depends in a great measure upon exterior circumstances and relations, which cannot always be controlled; but internal commerce, being the sole work of the nation, only declines with the nation itself."