have never seen it. It
was the first and easiest means of travel used by our forefathers before
there were any roads or railroads through the wilderness. It now aids
in carrying on trade between different regions. If large and deep
enough, it permits boats from all parts of the world to reach the very
heart of our country.

Canals might be called artificial rivers. They serve an important
purpose in nearly level countries where Nature has placed no navigable
river. Although canal boats usually move slowly, yet they can carry
goods cheaper than railroads can. The Erie Canal, in connection with the
Great Lakes and the Hudson River, makes it possible for us to go all the
way by water from the heart of the continent to New York City. The Erie
Canal has helped make New York City the greatest city in our country.
The canal across the Isthmus of Panama saves ships a journey of many
thousand miles around South America.

Rivers serve us in yet another way by affording water for irrigation. A
great river like the Colorado flows through regions of many different
climates. Some rivers become so small in the summer that it is necessary
to build great reservoirs at their headwaters in order to insure a
supply when the crops need it. But in the case of the Colorado this is
not necessary. The headwaters of this river are among lofty mountains,
where the melting snows and summer showers make the waters of the river
higher in the early summer than at any other season of the year. Thus
its great delta, the Colorado Desert, has become the home of many
thousands of people.

Another use which we make of rivers is by putting the water to turning
mill wheels. If you will turn to your geographies, you will find that
nearly all the great manufacturing cities of our country have grown up
around rapids or waterfalls, where some river tumbles over a ledge of
rocks.

Once we had to build our mills close to the rivers to use the water
power, but this is no longer necessary. Now we build electric-power
plants by the rivers and carry electric energy more than a hundred miles
to any place where we wish to use it. Electricity made from the distant
mountain waterfall will do any kind of work for us wherever we carry it.
Thus we see that the river works for us in more than one way. After it
has created power for our factories, it can be turned on to the thirsty
fields, where it will serve us equally well.

[Illustration: _Great Western Power Compa