The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-15

There iS1 no doubt that everyDouy was greatly. relieved when it was fin ally settled that the threatened rail- road strike would not come off, but 1t "a very deMbtful," says statement tss,aed by the National Rivers and i44Aa bors Congress, whether anybody drew &, deeper breath of relief than eertaiA people in the Navy depart lsae4k-a4na no one who knows what the AaVy people were up against VIII wonder that this is so.
 s~IAe work of building and repair inx battAesAaps and other naval craft tlnNst, ef course, be done in shfpyards located, on the coast, bat practically all tAes material used both for con- lxtnGctieM and repair eenaes from the hater4ex, ,snucA> of 1t from points hun .xireAs ofs nailes from adewater> For |instanee> arraor plate comes from EBetAleAem, Pa, and steel, in many shapes for sxaany uses, from Patts- AxrsA.
 s.Tt ls, vitaily important that this material shall be moved regularly and |contanueusiy from the points where it is made to. the places where it is to IhS used, and this movement has been entirely tbysraiL Just as soon, there
 
 ,x4rake on the railroads of the country twas actually impending, an investiga- ton was started to see If there were any routes available for Its move naent by water For instance, If work Twas. to be continued on the battleship 4 Fsew Mexico 1t would be necessary to move 2,5oo tons of steel within six veeavs from the mills at Pittsburgh 'ltua the navy yard at Brooklyn Could litfbe done at all? Was there more thsan one ,route that could be used7 If 1 scswhat route was the best, the short | est, and especially, the quickest. -sThe first thing discovered was that there is no map or document, official or otherwise, that shows or tdaecribes all the waterways in the I 1sUnited States. The reports of the Chief of Engineers give the fullest puuszble inEDrxnation as to the rivers and harborss under control of the War l Denartment, but not a word about state-owned or private cana-s. The General Staff and the War College have maps showing all lines of trans :! portation in certain areas, special studies of which have been made in iwprking out problems of defense, but no mars ROT data covering the coun- I try as aawhole or any considerable l portions thereof. Commercial meps and aliases were found to be worse l than useless. since most of them do lnof even pretend to show any water |~ys Aexceptathe principal rivers. and of thetrest no&two agree in what they show
 .'D Is only al/1ittle way from Pitts burxh to.Lake Erie and canal across this short cut has been both proposed land opposed for many years. So far fhe opposers havS won, but if the Navy department could have got hold of AladdiKs lamp two weeks ago that canal would have been built quicker than a wink With a sigh flor what smight have been, and ought ltos be. but isn't, the naval investga- tcrs turned hopefully to the three ca Inais across stl1e state of Ohio, only to lind after as strenuous, search that the Ibest of the lot has sections twenty Emiles long which have no water in Ith4m, and that the only way to get from Pittsburgh to the. Lakes by wa Ter is to go dowp the Ohio, up the IMjnyissippi and the Illinois and Ethruugh sixty miles or more of the lout- Of date Illinois and Michigan ca tnal to Chicago Another possible lroute from Pittsburgh to Brooklyn lwas down the Ohio and Mississippi land thenSby ocean ,steamerefrpm New Orleans.
 "A little farther search revealed sfhe fact that no dependencetcou1d be Iplaced on the Ohio, because this is Ithe season of low water and not one- third of the dams needed to insure a lnine foot channel ;have yet been com lp1eted. Material stated down the
 Ohio might get through, but all the probabilities were that 1t would get
 stuck on a sandbar-and stay there until the November rains should bring
 A rise in the river. Sometimes it hap
 pens too, that the November rains do not come until January. Almost in idesperation at the situation with which they were confronted the tnavy
 men were trying to arrange to ship by trolley cars fom Pittsburgh to
 Cleveland, and thence by lake to Buff
 talo and Erie canal and Hudson river
 >o Brooafyn. when the emergency leg