Volume Vi Part 14 (2/2)

Highest dam in the world. Height 328.4 feet.

The Truckee-Carson project provides for the irrigation of 150,000 acres in western Nevada. The water of the Truckee River, which flows out of Lake Tahoe, is distributed by ca.n.a.ls having an aggregate length of 670 miles. The main ca.n.a.l was opened in 1905.

By the close of the year 1906, over $39,000,000 had been allotted for works under actual construction, and this amount had increased to $119,500,000 within four years. It has been estimated that the land thus reclaimed will alone be worth $240,000,000. The additional cost of a project is a.s.sessed against the land. When the land is sold, the money received is used for the development of new irrigation areas.

Another significant plan outlined by the irrigation congress in its meeting, 1911, provided for bringing about the complete reclamation of all swamp and overflowed land. The swampland area of the United States exceeds 74,500,000 acres, or an amount greater than the area of the Philippine Islands by 1,000,000 acres.

The Mississippi basin has been called the heart and soul of the prosperity of the United States. Two-fifths of the area of the country, comprising one-half the population, is tributary to the Mississippi system, which has over 20,000 miles of navigable waters. This valley produces three-fourths of our foreign exports. The network of railroads covering this territory has for a number of years furnished altogether inadequate transportation facilities, and conditions have grown steadily worse. Traffic experts throughout the United States have been advising river improvement as a means of relieving the congestion of freight.

This situation has led to a revival of interest in the deep waterway from the Lakes to the Gulf which has been talked and written about for nearly three-quarters of a century.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Photograph by Clinedinst.

Shoshone Project. Wyoming Park wagon road, showing wonderful tunnelling work on the new wagon road from Cody, Wyo., to the National Park via the Shoshone Dam.

[1907]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Truckee-Carson reclamation project.

Diversion dam and gates at heading of main ca.n.a.l.

Concerted action was not taken until 1907, when the Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterways a.s.sociation was formed at St. Louis, having for its object the deepening of the water-way between Lake Michigan and the Gulf. The proposal to construct a ca.n.a.l by the way of the Illinois River to the Mississippi, large enough to carry s.h.i.+ps, was declared feasible by government engineers and a route was surveyed. President Roosevelt endorsed the scheme. In his message to Congress, December 3, 1907, he said: ”From the Great Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi there should be a deep water-way, with deep water-ways leading from it to the East and the West. Such a water-way would practically mean the extension of our coast line into the very heart of our country. It would be of incalculable benefit to our people. If begun at once it can be carried through in time appreciably to relieve the congestion of our great freight-carrying lines of railroad. The work should be systematically and continuously carried forward in accordance with some well-conceived plan ... . Moreover, the development of our water-ways involves many other important water problems, all of which should be considered as part of the same general scheme.”

He appointed an Inland Waterways Commission which was to outline a comprehensive scheme of development along the various lines indicated.

Their leading recommendation had to do with the proposal for a deep water-way from Chicago to New Orleans. The completion of the drainage ca.n.a.l by the city of Chicago, at a cost of $55,000,000, really created a deep waterway for forty miles along the intended route. It was reported to Congress by a special board of surveyors that the continuation of such a water-way to St. Louis would cost $31,000,000.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Nine men seated at a conference table.]

Inland Waterways Commission.

The legislature of Illinois, following the recommendation of Governor Charles S. Deneen, submitted to the people an amendment of the const.i.tution which would enable the State to a.s.sume a bonded indebtedness of $20,000,000 for the purpose of constructing a deep waterway from Chicago to St. Louis. The measure was approved by popular vote November 3, 1907. Thereupon, the State Senate pa.s.sed a bill providing for the construction of the ca.n.a.l. This failed in the House.

It was again introduced into the legislature, 1910, but failed to pa.s.s.

Among the other important projects submitted by the Inland Waterways Commission are the following: To connect the Great Lakes with the ocean by a twenty-foot channel by the way of the Erie Ca.n.a.l and the Hudson River, an inner channel extending from New England to Florida; to connect the Columbia River with Puget Sound and deepen the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rivers, so as to bring commerce by water to Sacramento and other interior California cities.

With the hope that New York City might again come into a mastery of the trade with the West, as at the time when the Erie Ca.n.a.l was first completed and because of the inability of the railroads to meet the demands of traffic, the legislature of New York, in 1903, appropriated $100,000,000 for the enlargement of that waterway and the two branch ca.n.a.ls, the Oswego and Champlain. The proposed uniform depth is twelve feet and it is otherwise to be large enough for boats of a thousand ton cargo or four times the capacity of boats now on the ca.n.a.l.

CHAPTER VIII

DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW SOUTH

[1904]

<script>