SHIPPING ON THE SYSTEM. Prior to the Civil War the Mississippi River system played a much more important part in the de velopment of the interior of the country than did the Great Lakes. While the tonnage carried upon it is greater than ever before, the nature of the traffic has greatly changed, and the competition of the railroads bac affected the river shipping nuteh more than it has that of the lakes. The river was but little navigated for purposes of commerce prior• to 1778. For many years the river was of importance to its tributary region chiefly as a means of marketing the surplus products of the newly settled region, since freight could not be profitably transported up stream. The methods used to transport the freight down stream were of the crudest kind. The most common carrier was the flatboat, rudely constructed from timber and without any other propelling force than the current of the river. After it had carried its load to the New Orleans market it was broken up for lum ber or deserted. In 1S12 the first steam boat was placed upon the river, and with the improvements that rapidly followed in steam navigation, the up-stream traffic also be came large. In 1820 the upward movement of freight on the :Mississippi amounted to about 100.000 tons, of which 33,300 tons were carried
by steamers, and the remainder by barges, etc. In 1845, 2050 steamboats and 346 keel and flat boats arrived at Saint Louis, of which 250 were from New Orleans, 406 from the Ohio, including the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, 29S from the Illinois River, 643 from the Mississippi above the Missouri, 249 from the Missouri River, and 204 from other ports. The arrivals at Saint Paul increased from 41 in 1844 to 846 in 1856. The years 1840 to 1859 constituted the palmy days of Mississippi navigation. Since then, over the greater part of the Mississippi Valley, the railroad has obtained most of the passenger traffic and most of the freight, except bulky products, chiefly coal and lumber. In 1900 the coal carried amounted to 8,539,224 tons, its movement being almost wholly upon the Ohio and its tributaries. The lumber and forest product carried in that year amounted to 9,300, 641 tons, which were well distributed between the different tributaries and the main stream. In recent years the bulk of the traffic has been carried on barges towed by steamers.