The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-11-17
THE WATERWAYS OF ALABAMA
 AND BIRMINGHAM CONVENTION
Third in Series to Render the Subject of Inland Waterways Better Appreciated Through
 out the State.
Fly c. GROSVENOR DAVE.

It Is easy to understand why a june kfon between the Tennessee and the Alabama has had such enduring fasci- nation for the public mind. The Ten" uessee after leaving Chattanooga plunges boldly to the southwest. cut ting deeply into the State of Alabama as if it would cleave 1t in twain 10 reach the gulf. Then shwarted by ramDarts of coal measures and iron ore, rising several hundred feet above 1t as they slope backward from its banks, it seems to turn angrily away from its purpose only to hesitate and finger across the width of Alabama, setting it's course slightly north. At last, as if with a final determination to be brave. and take it's long, slow, rouna- about tourney to the gulf, 1t leaves the northwest corner of the State at as sharp an angle as that by which IL entered at the northeast corner.
 Az early as the time of John quincy Adams. talk was rife of canal to con- meet the two systems; and since that time each passing decade has stirred naw groups of men to agltate TOT surveys. estimates, appropriations, only to see each decade end with nothing done. Thus. we come to the Birmins- ham Waterways Convention unable to rerort one decisive move taken to- wards accomplishing that which seemed feasible and reasonable eighty years
 
 ago. .. r,...
 The fascination doubtless arises from two courses-the Tennessee py reason of its plunge into the state oI Alabama, justiffes the feeiing tnas helonRg to Alabama as truly as It ooes to Tennessee. Then the floating com inerce of It's broad bosom, possible un- der aeyelopments and destined Tor the sulf seems as if it ought to take a short cut that would save a journey ol 800 miles long and reduce It 10 eve miles, ending at port near the guia instead of ending at a port over Ivy miles away from the gul1.
 Whatever the motive, selfish or un- eaIfish. the agitation is now more iive- " and possibly more determined than aver. for this is the day of waterway agitation everywhere. stimulated py President Raosevelt's remarks on spending $500, ,0eo.ooo if necessary to provide fourteen foot channel gown fine Mississippi. ''Whilst on others flaou are smiling do not pass me by" K the present chorous. with tremendous emphasis on ''me."
 TWO routes for a canal from Gun 4ersviIie to Gadsden were surveyed in the 70's. The first of these scared up- ward 400 feet above the Tennessee and se4 feet above the Coosa ana was ne- tween fifty and sixty miles long. The second of these scared 5l4 feet above fhe tennessee and sos feet above the Coosa and was between eighty-six and eighty seven miles long.
 The estimated cost of the first route ss not readily accessible; the second vas expected to cost $s,5lb,oO0, includ- insr me cost of a tunnel 6,30O feet long. This brief summary of the survey is eppropriately inserted here; for there nas been recently much ciamor and srctest north of us against draining he Tennessee into the Alabama and Efaus nulIifying the enormously expen- sive works at Muscle Shoals. The alarm may be genuine or 1t may not, huf in central and southern parts of the State the universal experience is that water will not leap out of its bed Ep run up hill.
 Away back in the '7os also survey