Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1870-02-04
Encouraging to Farmers and
ets Miners.

We would fail to discharge our duty as
a public journalist, were we to omit to lay
before our patrons true and concise state
ment of the encouraging facts relating to
the important movement Of securing water
Transportation from the Mississippi river
to the eastern cities.
Every day is developing something more
encouraging in this scheme. The whole
enterprise has become already reduced to
the Improvement of the Wisconsin river
alone, to the distance of but llS miles.
To this single item are the people Of the
eastern States, and especially those Of New
York aid the city, directing their atten
ton.
The plan complete, is to improve the
Wisconsin river from Prairie du Chen to
Portage, so as to secure navigation by
steamboats of five feet draft, thence through
the Green Bay and Mississippi canal and
reaching Lake Michigan at Green bay.
The distances are as follows: From
Prairie du Chen to Portage, lls miles {;
from the Wisconsin river to the Fox river,
II miles; down the Fox river, leo miles /;
making the entire distance from the Mis-
sissippi to Lake Michigan by steamboat,
2791 miles.
Steamboats, of 800 tons burthen. have
already passed from Lake Michigan to the
Mississippi.
---Es.~- '1s::--:-e---- Portage is 1859
feet higher than the Mississippi. z feet
higher than the Fox river, and 200 feet
higher than Lake Michigan. The Fox riv-
er is already supplied with locks and dams
sufficient to overcome the fall of 200 feet.
The practical plan for establishing this
water communication, is, to ask Congress
for an appropriation suffi lent to improve
the | 10 miles of the. Wisconsin river, and
the Green Bay and Mississippi Canal Com
pany agrees to improve the Fox river and
make the navigation as good as the gov
eminent will make the Wisconsin.
Major General G. K. Warren, U. S. En-
gineer, made report to the Government
Department concerning the improvement
Of the Wisconsin river, in October, 1868,
Of three plans, as follows: LIST. All by
river, concentrating the channel by wing
dams. I'd. Twenty eight miles by river
and ninety miles by canal 3rd. All the
distance by canal. The canal to be 20 feet
wide at the bottom and 80 feet at the top.
He recommended the third plan-all canal,
and estimated the time at three years, and
the cost at two millions of dollars, and this
including the paving of the sides of the ca
'nal in cuts, and lifting by locks us feet.
1t is estimated that a tariff of one cent
per ton per mile, allowing but one-fifth of
the transportation to be conducted through
this channel. will save to the producer and
consumer, yearly, sum equal to twice
the cost of the improvement. The tolls at
the above rates, after paying for repairs
and yielding the carrier good profit,
would amount to one million dollars annu.
ally, and reimburse the appropriation by
Congress in about five years.
The people Of the east are earnest in the
matter, and those of the west are to be
benefited as well. What We save to the
consumer in the east S gained by the pro-
Queer in the west.
We must, by all means, secure this ad
vantage that is now within our grasp, and
repocket the money we have lavished up
on transportation monopolies