The Union Pacific Railway has its eastern terminals at Omaha and Kansas City. From Omaha, the main line runs westward by the Platte River and one of its tributaries to Cheyenne, where it is joined by the line from Kansas City to Denver. The railway then enters the Rocky Mountains by Evans Pass, crosses over the plateau country lying between these mountains and the Wahsatch Range, and descends to Ogden, on the shores of Great Salt Lake. From Ogden several lines, connected with the Union Pacific, run to the coast. One goes to Portland by the old Oregon trail, following first the Snake, and later the Columbia. Another adopts the old California trail to San Francisco by way of the Humboldt River and across the Sierra Nevada by the Truckee Pass, while a third, pursuing what is practically the old Spanish trail, crosses the Mohave Desert and the San Bernardino Mountains to Los Angeles.
The Denver and Rio Grande Railway, which has one of its eastern terminals at Pueblo, and is there connected with the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe line from Chicago by Kansas and the Arkansas River, and with the Missouri Pacific from St. Louis and Kansas, as well as with other lines, utilises the valleys of the Arkansas and the Grand to carry it through the mountains on its way to Salt Lake City, whence a line runs to San Francisco first to the south and then to the north of that from Ogden by the California trail.
The main line of the Santa Fe system turns southward before Pueblo is reached, crosses the outer ranges of the Rocky Mountains, and enters the valley of the Rio Grande which one line follows to El Paso. Another, however, breaks off at Albuquerque, crosses the southern part of the Colorado Plateau, the Mohave Desert, and the Sierra Nevada, and runs to San Francisco. The Southern Pacific, the last of the trans-continental lines, starts from New Orleans and enters the mountains near El Paso. It then crosses the Arizona and Colorado desert regions on its way to Los Angeles, whence one line follows the California and Puget Sound valleys to Portland, while another runs along the coast to San Francisco.
Of the waterways of the United States, the Panama Canal, although it does not lie within the country itself, is at the present time attracting most attention. By it a shorter route will be opened up from the eastern ports of Canada and the United States to the whole of the western seaboard of North and South America, to China and Japan, and to Australasia. The United Kingdom and other maritime countries of Europe may also benefit as far as trade with the west of America is concerned, but the extent to which existing routes will be affected depends upon a variety of circumstances, not all of which are geographical.
The freight carried along the coasts, or upon the inland waterways of the United States, is rapidly increasing in amount, and at the same time becoming more specialised in character. On the Atlantic
seaboard there is a great movement of coal from the New Jersey terminals and other coal ports further south to various parts of the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico. Ice is sent to the southern cities by boat, while crude petroleum from Texas, and phosphates from Florida and South Carolina, go north to be refined.
On the Great Lakes, traffic is growing fast and the amount of freight shipped from their ports in 1910 was more than three times as great as the amount shipped in 1889, while the net tonnage of vessels passing through the " Soo " Canals is now nearly three times that of the vessels going by Suez. Iron ore moves eastward from Lakes Superior and Michigan to Lake Erie, while coal is sent in the opposite direction. Grain is shipped to ports on the Atlantic seaboard from Duluth, Superior, and Milwaukee, going by way of the Erie Canal. On the Mississippi, the most important article of freight is coal from the Pittsburg region to the cities lower down the river. But, while the movement of coal on the Mississippi has increased, that of all other articles has decreased, and this decrease is true, not only for the Mississippi, but for practically all other rivers and canals in the States. For example, the Erie Canal, which connects the Great Lakes with the magnificent waterway of the Hudson, carried in 1906 only one-half of the freight that it carried twenty-five years previously. This canal is, however, in process of reconstruction. At the present time it can only accommodate barges carrying not more than 240 tons of freight, but, when the works now in process are completed, each lock will hold two 1,000-ton barges coupled tandem. Mechanical power, moreover, will entirely displace animal traction. The route of the new canal, which will follow that of the existing one for the greater part of the way, is up the Hudson from Albany to Waterford, and along the Mohawk to a point just west of Rome, and then by Wood Creek, Oneida Lake and River, and Seneca River to the vicinity of Clyde. Practically the whole course so far consists of canalised river and lake, but beyond Clyde the existing canal will be deepened and improved as far as Tona wanda, whence the course is up the Niagara River to Lake Erie and Buffalo. By this canal, on which the state of New York is spending over £25,000,000, it is hoped to control railway rates by restoring competition by water, and to render the port of New York the outlet of the immense traffic on the Lakes to a much greater extent than it is at present.
Another proposal under consideration is to connect Chicago with the Gulf of Mexico by means of the Chicago Drainage and Ship Canal, which runs from Lake Michigan to the Des Plaines River, the Des Plaines itself, the Illinois, of which it is a tributary, and the Mississippi.