The traffic of all these trade highways is by legislation reserved for American ships alone.

On the Great Lakes has sprung up a merchant marine rivaling that of some of the foremost maritime peoples, and conducting a traffic that puts to shame the busiest maritime highways of Europe.

Long Island Sound bears on its placid bosom steamships that are the marvel of the traveling public the world over.

The Hudson, the Ohio, the Mississippi, are all great arteries through which the life current of trade is ceaselessly flowing.

A book might be written on the one subject of the part that river navigation has played in developing the interior States of this Union.