Rivers and Railroads in the United States

The large appropriations of public funds for the development of the channels in our rivers and harbors have grown from very modest beginnings. Before the application of steam to transportation, the principal methods of communication were by horse-drawn vehicles or by sails. The invention of the light-draft river steamboat offered many facilities for the development of large areas otherwise inaccessible, and the demand for better channels in our interior rivers at once grew. Later, some of our harbors required better facilities, so that, from that day to the present, expenditures for these purposes have increased year by year until now there are projects under construction, or favorably considered, amounting to more than $289 000 000, and the annual appropriations have increased to more than $40 000 000.