over the St. Lawrence route at an estimated saving of transportation costs of from $6 to $13 per ton. In addition there will be imports over this route of fish, rice, tropical fruits and nuts, wood pulp, manganese, etc., and other commodities, amounting to more than 3,000,000 tons annually, at a very great saving of transportation costs.

The Hoover Commission already referred to and the Department of Commerce estimate that from 21,000,000 to 25,000,000 tons of commodities are at present available for shipment over the St. Lawrence route annually, 80 per cent of which represents exports and imports. This will be very largely increased by the time the St. Lawrence route can be completed. At an average saving of only $2.50 per ton in transportation costs, this will amount to more than $50,000,000 annually. This represents a 4 per cent return on $1,250,000,000.

But it is not only lower costs of transportation through admitting oceangoing vessels to the Lakes that will be of economic benefit to the country. In connection with the improvement of the St. Lawrence for navigation, vast water powers will be developed, ultimately amounting to 5,000,000 horsepower. About 2,250,000 of this amount will be developed along the international section of the river between New York State and the Province of Ontario, one-half of which will belong to the United States. The plan calls for the immediate installation of 1,160,000 horsepower with provision of doubling this amount when a market for the power is available at an additional cost of only $32,000,000. When the full power on the international section is developed the cost for development and installation will be only about $100 per horsepower, which will permit its sale to New England and New York users at a much lower price than

power can be produced for in any other way.

The construction of the St. Lawrence route with its incidental development of water power will save many New England industries from ruin.

Another great economic benefit to the entire country will be in the development of the nation's merchant marine. The people dwelling along our coasts have a keen realization of the value of a merchant marine flying the American flag, but the people of the interior, living far from our coasts, do not realize its importance and have been so indifferent upon the subject that legislation necessary to secure a permanent American Merchant Marine has never been enacted.

The St. Lawrence Waterway will add 4,000 miles to the coast line of the nation, an increase of nearly 50 per cent. When ocean vessels ply upon the Great Lakes there will be a visible demonstration of the desirability of maintaining the American flag upon the seas, and sentiment for an American Merchant Marine will then be as strong in the Middle West as it is now upon our coasts. In the great harbors of Chicago, Milwaukee, Superior, and Duluth, ships flying foreign flags will lead to a demand from that section that ships flying the American flag shall outnumber all others.

I have said nothing thus far about the cost of this improvement. The Hoover Committee estimates the navigation cost, that is the cost to the United States and Canada, at from $123,000,000 to $148,000,000 to be divided between the two countries. All additional costs would be chargeable to power which will take care of itself and cost the two governments nothing. It estimates the cost of the Lake Ontario-Hudson route at $506,000,000 and the so-called All-American route at $631,000,000 all chargeable to

navigation to be paid by the United States alone, for no water power will be developed on either of them.

There is no comparison possible between these routes and the St. Lawrence route from an economic standpoint.

I have reserved for my last point the consideration of the objection that the St. Lawrence Waterway traverses foreign territory, and that from the standpoint of our national defense the St. Lawrence Waterway should not be favored. It is said that, should we be engaged in war with Great Britain, this waterway would admit her dreadnoughts into the Great Lakes, and that our great cities upon those Lakes could be easily destroyed by them. Fortunately, this matter has already been investigated by the United States Government. I quote from a report made by the Board of Engineers of the War Department in 1918:

Such passage could be quickly and completely obstructed by the destruction of the locks in these canals by shell fire, notably in Canadian St. Lawrence River canals where all locks are within seven thousand feet of the United States main river shore, and some not over one half mile therefrom.

So if there was the slightest foundation for the theory that this ocean waterway might admit the English Navy into our Great Lakes and thus become a menace to us if we ever had trouble with Great Britain, our own War Department shows conclusively that every one of these locks and canals could be

destroyed by shell fire from the American side without the slightest difficulty.

But there is another aspect of this question which should be considered, and that is that our determination of this matter should not be affected by any theory that the United States and Great Britain may hereafter become involved in war between themselves. If we are to assume that such is a probability, we should also recognize that should it ever occur such a war would end our civilization, and the world would be destroyed so far as we or our descendants would have any interest in it whatever.

On the contrary, the construction of this waterway as a joint undertaking by the United States and Canada will more strongly cement the friendship between us and our great neighbor to the North. We now have treaty rights giving us equality upon Canadian waters and Canadian equality upon American waters. Instead of being a menace to our National Defense it will furnish the greatest object lesson of friendly coöperation between two great nations that the world has ever known.

It is not within the purview of this paper to discuss the details of the plan of the improvement, its present status. and the steps necessary to bring it to a successful completion.

I have sought to show that it is a great national undertaking of tremendous economic benefit not only to the interior of the nation but to the entire country, and it should receive the support of every patriotic American.

the past summer laid waste the lower Mississippi valley was a solemn and sinister reminder that the imperative need of flood control has not been met. It calls sharply to mind, too, the great urgency of the whole problem of effective distribution and utilization of waters. A review, therefore, of the factors relating to this problem in the Colorado River Basin is not untimely.

Since the flood menace in the Lower Colorado Basin has been temporarily mastered, time is available for such a careful study of all phases of the problem as will result in a thorough understanding of the situation, i.e., the utilization of water for irrigation, for domestic supply and for water power, together with such closely allied matters as state and federal jurisdiction, interstate control and distribution and international rights. These are problems of the first magnitude-the work of engineers and statesmen. The phase of the problem here presented is merely a description of the salient geographic factors of the Colorado River and its basin.

THE COLORADO BASIN

The Colorado Basin in actual territory is greater in extent than any one of the nations of Germany, France or Japan. Lying within the confines of seven states, it covers one-thirteenth of the area of the United States and a considerable section in northwestern Mexico. (See map, p. 88.)

Extreme variations prevail within the basin, from heavily timbered

continental divide to desert areas, the most forbidding in the country; from places famed as summer resorts to those where the heat at times is almost unbearable; from crystalline mountains of solid granite to plains of silt, ash-like in their appearance and from the widest, the deepest, the longest and the grandest chasm on earth-the Grand Canyon-to a meandering shallow bed of soft fine alluvium.

This basin may be divided geographically into two, possibly three, regions. Two portions are decidedly distinct. The lower third is located in the states of Arizona, California and Nevada, and extends a short distance into Mexico. In general, its elevation is but little above sea level, though scattered here and there are ranges of mountains that rise to heights of 2000 to 6000 feet and depressions that fall below sea level. Its northern line of demarcation is a line of cliffs, the Grand Wash Cliffs. These present a bold, often vertical, step that leads hundreds or thousands of feet to the table land above. This is the region. of the great American Desert, a land of excessive heat and aridity. Recorded temperatures have been known to reach 130° F.;1 the annual rainfall in places is less than two inches.2

1 Brown, John S., "The Salton Sea RegionCalifornia." U. S. Geological Survey, Water Supply Paper 497. Washington, 1923, p. 13.

2 The annual precipitation ranges from an inch and a half to eight inches a year with temperatures ranging from 32° F. to 120° F. U. S. Geological Survey, Water Supply Paper 556, p. 12.

The prosperity of this southern section rests upon agriculture under irrigation, but its well-being is recurrently threatened by inundation during flood and its progress is retarded by a shortage of water during dry periods. In 1924 a loss totalling millions of dollars was sustained by the farmers in the Imperial Valley because of lack of

water.

water

In many ways this lower section is similar to the Great Valley of California. Both receive the drainage of the large rivers of the interior. In the Gulf of California the Colorado River has built up its delta and in the California Valley the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers have formed theirs. The two areas are nearly at sea level. In each valley the displacement of the sea by alluvium has occurred within comparatively recent geological times. If the land should sink slightly less than 1000 feet, the California Valley would be flooded with sea through the Golden Gate, while the tides of the Gulf of California would be carried far north of Yuma and the land would be flooded for 200 miles northwest of the present head of the Gulf. Both sections depend upon the melting snows of the higher areas for their well-being. Separating these two valleys are the high ranges of the Western Cordillera with their greatest break at the pass of San Gorgonia. Through this gateway pass the trains of the Southern Pacific Railway at an altitude of 2580 feet, thus binding the interior to the Pacific.

The northern two-thirds of the Colorado Basin is a land of mountains and plateaus with an upper basin in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming (Green River Basin, see map, p. 88) and a plateau section (Colorado Plateau, see map, p. 88) in Utah, Nevada, California and Arizona. In the upper basin the northern watershed is ex

tremely rugged and fairly heavily timbered. Its streams flow through a succession of long, deep, narrow canyons transversed by short valleys that contain small tracts of arable meadow land. Severe winters prevail, but the growing season, although cool, is pleasant with enough warm weather for rapidly maturing crops. Broken plains and scarred plateaus of sedimentary origin are, however, the prevalent topographic features. The annual rainfall of only nine inches on the plains and meadow lands necessitates irrigation which is made possible by natural mountain lake storage and artificial reservoirs. Undeveloped reservoir sites, such as the Kremmling site, the greatest in Colorado, renders possible a more complete utilization of this region.

The plateau part extends from Lee's Ferry to Grand Wash Cliffs. In general, the elevation varies from 4000 to 8000 feet. Great ranges of snowclad mountains with peaks ranging from 8000 to 14,000 feet are a conspicuous part of the landscape. All winter long on this mountain-crested rim, snow fills the gorges, half burying the forests and mantling the mountain tops. With the approach of the summer sun the life-giving waters are released to go tumbling down the mountain side in millions of cascades. In the words of Major John W. Powell," "these ten million cascade brooks unite to form ten thousand torrent creeks; ten thousand creeks unite to form a hundred rivers beset with cataracts; a hundred roaring rivers unite to form the Colorado which rolls, a mad turbulent stream, into the Gulf of California." For more than a thousand miles along its course through the plateau section, the Colorado has

Powell, Major J. W. "First Through the Grand Canyon-Being the Record of the Pioneer Exploration of the Colorado River in 1869-1870."