The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1908-09-10
BY HERBERT QUICK.

We BtOppcu Tue great uOrLu anu
south through costal line at Flor
ida. The reader must have asked
himself why. There is no reason"
said the reader, why a system of
waterways calling itself national
should run as a water highway
from Boston to Jacksonville, link
Ing the Hudson, the Delaware, the
Potomac. the Roanoke and dozen
other Atlantic rivers and leave iso-
lated from each other, save by the
open ocean. such streams as the
Alabama, the Apalachicola,, the Sa-
bine, the Mississippi, the Brazos
and the Trinity, and such cities as
Galveston, Houston, Port Arthur.
New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile,
Pensacola and Tampa
The reader was right. The stop
ping of the Atlantic inner passage
at Jacksonville would be purely ar
bitrary. The gulf coast is in as
much need of a protected lake bay
and sound channel as is the At
lantic, for river and canal craft
can no more navigate the open gulf
than the open Atlantic. The inland
waterways commission recognizes
these facts, and the gulf states are
alive to the necessity of action.
1t will be borne in mind that the
backwater passage for barges from
Boston harbor to the st. Johns in
Florida Is all but opened. If not
completed Now from the western
tributaries of the st. Johns across
Florida to the Suwanee is only
few miles, easy digging, level
country, and the rivers are easily
improved. The shore from the
mouth Of the Suwanee-or wher-
ever the cross-Florida passage may
strike the gulf of Mexico--is sandy
and low. Thence westwardly to
Apalachee bay it is an all canal
reach, but not at all difficult. Here
begins a series of sounds and bays
where nature has made its own
backwater, as on the Carolina
coast; and all man has to do Is to
conect them up st. Georges chan
mel Is protected by an island break
water. On it's north shore is the
town OF Apalachicola, and the
mouth of the river of the same
name, which has navigation over
its whole length, and by its
branches, the Chattahochee and
Flint, is already a waterway sys-
tenn of hundreds of miles.
Westwardly our costal highway
now goes, by Apalachicola bay, ST.
Joseph bay, st. Andrews bay
(named by the pious Spanish Cath
olics), through Chocktawhatchee
bay (where passengers will debark
f@r De Funiak springs), and behind
the long Santa Rosa island into
Pensacola bay, where it taps the
commerce of the important port of
Pensacola, and receives the feed
ers of the Escambia and other in
land waterways
From Pensacola bay 1t but step
to Perdido bay and river, and the
inlets that reach by almost contin-
uous creeks, lakes and the Little
lagoon into the beautiful bay OF
Mobile, where the great port of
Mobile bids for the supremacy OF
the gulf commerce against New Or
leans and Galveston, and into
which falls one of the finest river
systems nj the country. The Mo-
bile, the Alabama, the Tombigbee.
the Black Warrior and Coosa COM
prise some SIS miles of navigation.
birmingham is in the midst of iron
and COAL like Pittsburg. Some
time, when Mr.. Leighton shall have
been allowed to establish his reser-
voirs in Mr.. Pinchot's Appalachian
forest, the low water that plaques
these rivers between floods, will be
remedied-and the floods also-and
an immense traffic in iron, steel
and coal will come down the Black
Warrior, Tombigbee, Alabama, Mo-
Dllt WdtCl Nag ii'oi VI eiio' Va
the Ohio. And the eastern inner
passage, as the costal waterway
from Florida to New Orlenas is
called, will be there to distribute
this trade east and west.
For, when we have built one line
to Mobile bay we are already at
New Orleans, through the protected
Mississippi sound, into which falls
the Pascagoula, the Pearl and other
good rivers. We pass across the
neck between the Mississippi and
either Lake Ponchartrain or Lake
Borgne, and we are at the New Or
leans wharves, and the whole At
lantic system is Joined for barge
traffic with that of the Mississippi,
with its $1,000 miles of navigation.
"A glorious commercial accomplish
ment!
But We do not stop here. We
have the western inner passage, as
the commission calls 1t. still to con-
struct. We go up the Mississippi to
Donaldsonville, $50 miles from the
! t'ulf-and we pass by lake, bay and
bayou-mostly straight canal build