River transport

“ It is the ordinary opinion, and one expressed too often in publications which might be expected to speak with some degree of accuracy, that river transportation in the United States is a dying industry. ”

“ The improvements that have been carried out for the purpose of opening up the navigation of the river Tees, although less considerable than those carried out for some of the larger rivers of Great Britain, are yet entitled to take rank as among the most notable river engineering achievements of the century. ”

“ One of these systems depends upon gaining an impulse or hold against the ground at the bottom of the river or canal, in one of which a small boat moved by oars was proposed to be employed in successively carrying forwards and dropping anchors whose ropes were to be attached to a horse-gin, on board of a barge, which was designed to tow or drag a great number of others. ”

“ The question of how far it would be expedient to construct a ship canal that would relieve the congested traffic of the river, and permit of vessels entering the docks at all times, has been mooted, but has never been very seriously entertained. ”

“ Here then we have only 3063⁄4 miles of canal suited to the passage of craft 84 feet by 12 feet, including the river Trent, which, of itself, contributes 72 miles to the total. In other words, only about twenty per cent. of the total independent waterways of the country can admit craft that would enable them to realise the full value of economical transport. ”

“ Of these 45.5 per cent were registered United States vessels, more than any other one nation. Fuel-oil, nitrates, steel and iron hold leading places in the line of commodities carried.
River Transportation. —As has already been stated streams and rivers were early adopted as a means for transportation. Birch-bark and dug-out canoes, flat-boats and keel-boats, with and without sails, and rafts were extensively used. For small boats paddles and oars furnished the means of navigation, while several pairs of oars were utilized on the larger boats. ”

“ Various far-seeing, patriotic and enterprising individuals took a leading part in pioneering the movement in favour of improved river navigation which, for a period of about 100 years—until, that is, the advent of the canal era—was to be developed with much zeal and energy, though not always with conspicuous success. ”

“ To come to other country pursuits, both for shooting and fishing, rapidity of transport will do wonders. You have often, for instance, in Scotland a lodge near your forest where the stalking is good, and possibly a few brown trout in the burn below. But ten miles away, perhaps over a good road, there is an excellent sea trout or salmon river which is only accessible after a good deal of organisation, and if the road is hilly, the expenditure of an hour or an hour and a half of time. ”

“ By an Act passed in 1504 riparian owners along the Severn were authorised, notwithstanding the earlier enactment of the freedom of the river itself, to take "reasonable recompense and satisfaction" from every person going upon their land to draw a boat. ”

“ The only considerable traffic that is carried on in the upper reaches of the river is the transport of coal in barges from the Great Western Railway Company’s depots at Brentford to the docks, and this is about as unsatisfactory as it could well be, involving the repeated breaking of bulk, and the damage of the coals from frequent handling. ”

“ Formerly, development was practically dependent on the river system, which is still of much importance, though the railways have now taken the first place as a means of transport. The production of important crops. ”

“ These are formed where the depth of the water is about two feet, by stakes with fascines, and filled in with stones. In the deeper parts of the river, which may be sometimes 12 to 15 feet, “chevalets” are driven in place of stakes. These consist generally of trunks of trees cut near the point of the bifurcation of the principal branches, and which are placed closer together in proportion to the depth. ”

“ They are as vital to our commerce and industry as any matter now dealt with by the State, affecting our material well-being, and they are every year increasing in extent and importance. As regards the principal rivers—the Mersey, the Tyne, the Tees, the Clyde, and the Wear especially—they are now controlled in accordance with the recommendation made by the Duke of Richmond’s Select Committee, that “each catchment area should be placed under a single body of conservators, who should be responsible for maintaining the river, from its source to its outfall, in an efficient state.” ”

“ Several attempts have been made on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to introduce steam towage, and in the year 1879 the company tried a screw steamer with compound condensing engines, to tow six 40-ton barges on a river or deep canal. ”

“ The Clyde, the Tyne, the Tees, the Wear, and other prominent English rivers have been transformed from shallow brawling streams, some of them easily fordable at all states of the tide, into magnificent waterways, capable of bearing on their bosoms the largest vessels afloat. This work has necessarily involved great engineering capacity, a large expenditure, and a judicious administration of their powers and resources by the public bodies through whom it has been carried to completion. ”

“ Even in the most favourable conditions of tide or water supply, the boats had to be dragged up and down the stream by men, who did the work of beasts of burden until the construction of the rival waterway led to the navigation proprietors employing horses or mules instead. ”

“ South Malabar and Travancore Canals, 243; projected Palk Straits Canal, 244 India, Euphrates Valley route to, 270; Jordan route to, 272; boats on canals of, 463 Indus river, the, 243 Inventions of 18th century, 8 Ireland linen manufacture of, 9; waterways of, 74 Irish rivers and canals, minor, 78 ” Sea and Birkenhead Ship Canal, proposed, 87 Iron, production of, 130 years ago, 2 Irrigation canals in Italy, 160; tanks or reservoirs in India, 241 Irwell and Mersey, proposed improvement of, 26, 35 Isthmian Canals, xii Italy, waterworks of, 153; early canals in, 153; the Tiber, 157 ”

“ Where a stream has all the load of any given degree of fineness that it is capable of carrying, the entire energy of the descending water is consumed by the transportation of the water and its burden, so that none is applied to erosion. If it has an excess of load, its velocity is thereby lessened and its power to transport is diminished ”

“ The mouth of a large river system is the converging point of many lines of inland and maritime navigation. The interests of commerce, especially in its earlier periods of development, demand that the contact here of river and sea be extensive as possible. Nature suggests the way to fulfill this requirement. The sluggish lowland current of a river, on approaching sea level, throws out distributaries that reach the coast at various points and form a network of channels, which can be deepened and rendered permanent by canalization. ”

“ A glance at a map of the United States will suffice to show that it has unique natural facilities for water transport. Its great lakes, which are inland seas of no inconsiderable dimensions, now connected together by the Erie and St. Mary’s Falls Canals, its magnificent rivers, such as the Mississippi and the Missouri, and the natural configuration of the country, create an ensemble for cheap transportation such as no other country can surpass. Besides these resources, however, the United States have now a railway system of over 160,000 miles. ”

“ Man, however, found out, in course of time, that it suited his interests and his convenience to establish a system of interchange of commodities. The simple and self-contained habits of the trapper and the hunter gave place to a more composite order of being. Then it was that the primeval forest, the jungle, the morass, and the prairie became rectangulated with roadways over which traffic could be rudely transported on the backs of mules, horses, or other beasts of burden. ”

“ Canals were superior to rivers in so far as they could be taken where rivers did not go, and could be kept under control in regard to water supply without the drawbacks of floods or droughts, of high tides, or of being silted up by sand or mud. ”

“ It is equally true that in any river system which is fully supplied with material for transportation and which has attained a condition of equal action, the declivity of the smaller streams is greater than that of the larger. ”

“ The modern processes of excavation of the soil, in order to form or deepen the bed of a waterway, or of the construction of an embankment, in order that a railway or a canal may be carried above the level of the surrounding country, are now so familiar and commonplace, that we are accustomed to think but little of the slow and laborious steps whereby the means of carrying them out have been evolved from the necessities, the experience, and the scientific acquirements of modern times. ”

“ The laborers of the river are the dredges, pile-drivers, and their kind. They must see to the journeyman’s work that keeps the river’s traffic unhampered. They drive piers 20 and jetties and dredge out sand-bars. They go and come, unnoticed by smarter vessels, laden heavily with broken stone, sand, or gravel. ”

“ The railways are a great and important part of our national development, but the waterways should not be neglected. Rather, the two should be so harmonized and adjusted as to make one great commercial system that will furnish cheap and abundant transportation for all our commerce.
The most complete plan for conserving our waters is as follows: First, build storage [Pg 120] reservoirs along the upper stretches of the river to hold the overflow waters of the flood season which are to be turned into the main channel when the water becomes too low for ordinary navigation. ”

“ There is a very prevalent impression that railways and canals have each their proper and natural function in the transport of merchandise—the railways in the carrying of goods of considerable intrinsic value, or of a perishable character, in which speed is an element of value; and the canals in conveying heavy merchandise, such as coal, iron ore, pig iron, building stone, timber, and other traffic, of relatively low intrinsic value, and incapable of being deteriorated by delay. ”

“ If obstructions occur in the form of rapids or falls, boat and cargo are carried around them. It is often easy to pass by a short portage or "carry" from one stream system across the divide to another. In regions which are not very level the easiest grades in every direction are found along the streams, and the main routes of land travel follow the stream valleys. In traversing a mountainous region, a railroad follows the windings of some river up to the crest of the divide, which it crosses through a pass, or often by a tunnel, and descends the valley of some stream on the other side. ”

“ Every here and there an isthmus is found to divide waters that appear as if they were intended by Nature to be joined together.
The same remarkable absence of facilities for promoting the requirements of commerce is apparent on land as on water. The surface of the earth, and the divisions of land and water, appear to have been left by Nature in such a condition as to tax the highest powers and capacities of man. The knowledge of roads, of bridges, of canals, has been laboriously acquired and slowly applied. The aboriginal inhabitants of a country usually care for none of these things. ”

“ A navigable river in this country is one which is used, or is susceptible of being used in its ordinary condition, as a highway for commerce over which trade and travel are or may be conducted in the customary modes of trade, and travel on water. ”

“ But in this utilitarian age—when steamers ply on the Grand Canal of Venice, when railways are carried up Vesuvius and the Righi, when the Alps are pierced by tunnels, and engineers are drawing the water supply of our great towns from the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland, heretofore the chosen retreat of our poets and philosophers—the test of most things is that of use and convenience ”

“ The economists and engineers of Germany have devoted a considerable amount of attention to the question of the cost of transport by water as compared with the cost of railway transport. For such an inquiry they have had ample facilities, having not only an economically-worked railway system, but having also several navigable rivers, on which a large traffic is carried, in addition to their system of canals. ”

“ While this is the condition of business in the city on the land, the river and its branches are crowded with vessels of all kinds, sailing craft and steamers, boats, barges, and tugs, moving backwards and forwards, and loading and unloading. Along the banks there are docks, warehouses, elevators, and all the appliances for shipping and reshipping goods. To these vessels the unrestricted navigation of the river and its branches is of the utmost importance; while to those who are compelled to cross the river and its branches the bridges are a necessity. ”

“ RAILWAYS AND CANALS. “Canals are to the inhabitants of a country what seas are to nations; they equally serve to assist the wants of society and benefit commerce.”—Cresy.
There is no movement of modern times that has been more pregnant in its results, or more interesting in its course of development, than that which has given to the world its existing system or systems of transportation. Of that movement, the competition of the railway and the canal for the traffic that has been equally open to both has been a phase that has received less attention than it deserved. ”