d. The richest coast in the world is that bordering on the lakes.
The cheapest ships in the world can there be built. Already the Government
has spent its tens and scores of millions in providing waterways from the
extreme northwest end to the southeastern extremity of this water system,
and it is unbelievable that it shall long remain violently stopped there.
New devices for digging canals; such as those employed in the Chicago
drainage channel, and the new pneumatic lock, the power and capacity of
which seem to be practically unlimited, have vastly decreased the cost of
canal building, and multiplied amazingly the value of artificial
waterways. As it is admitted that the greatness and the wealth of New York
State are much to be credited to the Erie canal, so the prosperity and
populousness of the whole lake region will be enhanced when lake sailors
and the lake ship-builders are given a free waterway to the ocean.

**Transcriber's note: Page 256: changed estopped to stopped.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MISSISSIPPI AND TRIBUTARY RIVERS--THE CHANGING PHASES OF THEIR
SHIPPING--RIVER NAVIGATION AS A NATION-BUILDING FORCE--THE VALUE OF SMALL
STREAMS--WORK OF THE OHIO COMPANY--AN EARLY PROPELLER--THE FRENCH FIRST ON
THE MISSISSIPPI--THE SPANIARDS AT NEW ORLEANS--EARLY METHODS OF
NAVIGATION--THE FLATBOAT, THE BROADHORN, AND THE KEELBOAT--LIFE OF THE
RIVERMEN--PIRATES AND BUCCANEERS--LAFITTE AND THE BARATARIANS--THE GENESIS
OF THE STEAMBOATS--CAPRICIOUS RIVER--FLUSH TIMES IN NEW ORLEANS--RAPID
MULTIPLICATION OF STEAMBOATS--RECENT FIGURES ON RIVER SHIPPING--COMMODORE
WHIPPLE'S EXPLOIT--THE MEN WHO STEERED THE STEAMBOATS--THEIR TECHNICAL
EDUCATION--THE SHIPS THEY STEERED--FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS--HEROISM OF THE
PILOTS--THE RACERS.

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. We read every now
and then of the disappearance of the magnificent Mississippi River
steamers, and the magazines not infrequently treat their readers to
glowing stories of what is called the "flush" times on the Mississippi,
when the gorgeousness of the passenger accommodations, the lavishness of
the table, the prodigality of the gambling, and the mingled magnificence
and outlawry of life on the great packets made up a picturesque and
romantic phase of American life. It is true that much of the
picture