The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-10-28
TENNESSEE RIVER IS APPRECIATED Senator Morgan Writes an h.
 teresting Letter DISCUSSES CHALK BEDS Is Not Sure But What These Beds Will In the Future Prove to Be Ala
 bama's Most Valuable
 Asset.
DISCUSSES CHALK BEDS

Montgomery, October .-(Special) )-Seo- retary l.. l.. Gilbert of the Commercial and Industrial association makes public the following letter from Senator Mor- gan:
 Selma, October %, 1905. MT. L. L. Gilbert, Secretary, Montgom-
 cry, Ala:
 Dear Sir-I fear that the prospect of my being able to accept the invitation to the convention at Decatur of the Alabama Commercial and Industrial association on the 7th and Sth of November is not eer- tain. l feel the greatest interest in it's success. These conventions mean more to Alabama just now than any connec- tion we have with the success of political contests in the state. or the United States. When industry and commerce becomes stalking horses for office-hunters. the real welfare of the people Is in doubt ful keeping, and l am glad that the association of which you are secretary is not in any sense a political body.
 The programme of the meeting at De- catur Is of real interest and concern to the people of Alabama, and the gentlemen selected for presenting and discussing the various topics are admirably qualified Tor the roles assigned to them. We are justly to expect valuable contributions ot our knowledge of these subjects from their discourses.
 If I could be present I would crave the opportunity to present one or two other subjects of immense importance that are little understood by the great body of the commercial and industrial people of Alabama and seem to have only a feeble recognition In the thoughts and labors of our politicians.
 They are the chalk beds on the entire extent of the northern and southern mar gins, or shores, of the black belt, which was formerly the bed of a great sea, and the Tennessee river, it's navigation, Us unequalled resources of commercial and industrial wealth, and it's water power, which in it's capacity for the production of horse power to move local machinery. more than equals any great deposit of coal in Alabama.
 The cement chalk of Alabama in their yield of revenue to the people for ages to come will equal and keep pace with II they do not exceed in cash value and con stant production to meet the demands of an inexhaustble market the value of any production of our great mines or forests or agricultural crop. H will be cassed among these resources If 1t does not ex- ceed any of them. I will be glad to sub init to the convention some of the lead ing facts ascertained by geologists and chemists and demonstrated by manufac- turers of Portland cement. that establish the propositions I have stated, and l make these statements to induce the con- vention to create a commission or US members and others, with Dr. Eugene A. Smith, our excellent state geologist, at it's head, to ascertain and report upon this subject. which owing to the work that is proposed on an .nteroccanic canal is of great and immediate importance.
 During this summer l have been at work as chairman of a select committee of the Senate in the study of the naviga- ton of the Tennessee river and it's ar fuents, as to their navigation. the ma terial they will furnish to commerce and industry, and the available water power they will afford to the manufacturing ca- pacity of the country along their courses.
 It is quite safe to say that none of the ffty-three navgable rivers in the water sheds of the Mississippi river with their more than 13 O00 miles of navigable waters, under improvement by the government, equal the Tennessee river in value 10 the country. or in cheapness of the cost of improvement. The dam across thisa river
 below Chattanooga thirty-five feet in
 height that is now in process of con struction by a power company at it's own cost is the first great step in river i'm proyement that will revolutioniZe the en- tire plan of the improvement of naviga- ton of the mountain streams.
 The government pays for the slack watel
 navigation thus provided by granting tn
 use of a water power to the constructor of the dams and locks free of all ;hargf in perpetual right. The constructor IT akes his profit by the cheap generation of horse power which costs as rule n1t moff , than one-ffth per horse power per drndm , what the same power generated bv steam
 at the most favored location, will cost
 When the saving that can be inade to the owners of machinery at Mussel Shoals is considered, the value of the water power there and elsewhere on the Ten nessee river, will in the long run pas for all needed improvements of the nav gation of the river to uniform deptf of nine feet at low water.
 The Tennessee river is entitled to the l benefit of this ultimate advantage of the cheapness of the cost of improvement, as just demand for liberal advances in pushing this work to early completion. If the federal government and the state governments that own the river beds, will 1 cooperate in arrangements to secure clear titles to investors, these water powers will soon relieve the treasury of the United States of the heavier part oi the improvements of the navigation of the Tennessee, and it's affluents.
 As an Alabamian, l feel the necessity of 1 this work of improvement in a higher sense even than the benefits it will con- fer upon the splendid region of the valley of the Tennessee. In addition to it's enor- nous wealth in mines and forests and in other agricultural production. it's cot ton fields that extend from Knoxville to Paducah are the northernmost cotton lands in the United States, and are near est to the factories of what is called the central west. With proper navigation seed cotton would soon be shipped to such mills as it is now delivered to the factories in the Tennessee valley. at a considerable saving to the planter and a profit to the spinner
 But all these are minor considerations to Alabama as state. when compared
 with the incubus that rest upon it as q commonwealth discovered by a mountain barrier that forces nearly half it's wealth to a foreign seaport. The sand mountain