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subject to the order and disposition of the Executive of said State.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That all lands of the United States within the limits of the State of Tennessee, with the exceptions enumerated in the first section of this act, shall be, and the same are hereby, ceded to said State.

REPORT

On the Memphis Memorial, submitted to the Senate, June 26th, 1846.

The Special Committee, to whom was referred the memorial of the Memphis Convention, have had the same under consideration, and submit for the consideration of the Senate the following report :

It appears, from the memorial, that the convention met in Memphis, Tennessee, in November last; that it consisted of five hundred and eighty-three members from the States of Pennsylvania, Virginia, the two Carolinas, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and the Territory of Iowa, making sixteen States and one Territory; and that its object was to confer on the measures which should be adopted for the development of the resources of the valley of the Mississippi, and the adjacent States on the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast. It also appears that its deliberations terminated in the adoption of twenty resolutions, among which the most prominent relates to the improvement of the navigation of the Mississippi and its great navigable tributaries, including the deepening of the bar at its mouth, and its connection with the lakes by a ship canal; the security and de

fence of the commerce between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast; the reclamation, by embankments, of the public lands subject to inundations on the Mississippi and its tributaries, and the connection of its valley and the southern Atlantic States by a system of railroads.

What your committee propose is to present its views on each of these subjects, taking them in the order in which they stand.

Of these several objects, the improvement of the navigation of the Mississippi, including its great navigable tributaries, is by far the most important, and has accordingly received their particular attention. That great stream is the channel through which, by the aid of steam, cheap and speedy transit and intercourse are effected, not only between all parts of its immense valley, but also between it and the rest of the Union and the commercial world and to this cheap and speedy transit and intercourse are to be attributed, even more than to its fertile soil and great resources, its almost miraculous increase in population, wealth, and improvement. So great have they been, that what, sixty years ago, was one vast region, with little exception, of forest and prairie, over which a few hundred thousand savages wandered, has now a population of but little less than nine millions, with great and flourishing cities, abounding in opulence, refined in manners, and possessed of all the comforts and even elegances of old and polished communities.

But, as great as this increase and improvement have been, they are nothing compared with what may be expected in the next sixty years. They advance with an accelerated. rapidity. The whole population in the entire region drained by the Mississippi did not, according to the first census (1790), exceed 200,000. According to that of 1800 it had increased, in round numbers, to 560,000. In 1810 it had increased, in like numbers, to 1,370,000; in 1820, to 2,580,000; in 1830, to 4,190,000; in 1840, to 6,370,000;

and in 1846, to 8,920,000, estimated according to the ratio of increase between the census of 1830 and that of 1840. Estimating it at the same rate, it would in 1856 exceed twenty millions; and in 1866, forty millions. It is, however, scarcely possible for the increase to keep pace with the present ratio; but, after making ample allowance for its retardation with the increase of population, it may be regarded as a safe calculation that the population of the valley will reach twenty-five millions in the next twenty years, forty in the next forty years, and sixty in the next sixty years, unless some shock should occur which would convulse or overthrow our political institutions.

But, as rapid as has been the increase of its population, its commerce has been still more so. It is stated, on what may be regarded as good authority, that, so late as 1817, "the whole commerce from New Orleans to the upper country was transported in about twenty barges of one hundred tons each, and making but one trip per year. The number of keelboats employed on the upper Ohio could not have exceeded one hundred and fifty, of thirty tons each, and making the trip from Pittsburg to Louisville and back again in two months, and about thrice in the season. The tonnage of all boats ascending the Ohio and the lower Mississippi was then about 6,500." The same authority states the number of steamboats employed in navigating the Mississippi and its tributaries in 1843 to be four hundred and fifty; their average tonnage to be about two hundred; their aggregate tonnage to be ninety thousand; their value per ton to be eighty dollars; their aggregate value to be seven million two hundred. thousand dollars; the persons engaged in navigating them to be fifteen thousand seven hundred and fifty; and the ex

The memorial of the citizens of Cincinnati, relative to the improvement of the navigation of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, 3d session 27th Congress, H. R. Doc. No. 124.

penses incidental to their navigation to be twelve million two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. It estimates the number of flat-boats engaged in the same navigation at four thousand, and the persons employed in navigating them at twenty thousand, and the annual cost and expense of building and navigating them at one million three hundred and eighty thousand dollars. It also estimates the amount of freight, on the supposition the boats go full freighted, at $2,000,000 annually, and the annual value of the products of the valley transported on the river and its tributaries at $120,000,000, and that from other portions of the Union and foreign countries at $100,000,000; making, in the aggregate, $220,000,000.

Such was the estimate of the commerce of the Mississippi, including its tributaries, made by an intelligent committee to the citizens of Cincinnati, at the beginning of the year 1843. It has greatly increased since, short as is the interval, with the rapidly increasing population and wealth of its valley. It appears, by the last annual report of the Treasury Department on the Commerce and Navigation of the United States, that their steamboat tonnage on the western waters on the last of June, 1845, was 159,713 tons. It appears, from the same document, that the number built during the year ending the 30th June, 1845, on those waters, was 119; making, in the aggregate, 19,633 tons, and an average of a fraction more than 173 to a boat, instead of 200, as estimated by the Cincinnati committee. Assuming that to be the average tonnage of the boats belonging to the river, their number then would be 888, and their number now may be estimated safely at 900 boats, and their tonnage at 161,787.

Assuming, then, the number of persons employed in navigating the Mississippi and its tributaries, and the expense of the navigation, and the value of the boats and cargoes, to be what the Cincinnati estimates make it, and that

their estimates are correct, the present annual value of the commerce of the river and its tributaries would exceed three hundred millions of dollars. But however great it may be, it is but the beginning. If the commerce of the valley shall increase in proportion with its population, and nothing should occur to impede that, it will in a short time be more than quadrupled. Looking beyond, to a not very distant future, when this immense valley, containing within its limits* 1,200,000 square miles; lying, in its whole extent, in the temperate zone, and occupying a position midway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; unequalled in fertility and the diversity of its productions; intersected in every direction by this mighty stream (including its tributaries), by which it is drained, and which supply a continuous navigation of upwards of 10,000 miles,—with a coast, including both banks, of twice that length,-shall be crowded with population, and its resources fully developed, imagination itself is taxed in the attempt to realize the magnitude of its commerce. Such is the present state of the commerce of the Mississippi, including its tributaries, according to the best data that can be obtained, and such its future prospects.

But as great as are the advantages which its waters afford to the transit and intercourse of its vast valley, its navigation is subject to serious and heavy drawbacks. Few rivers are more rapid and dangerous. It is obstructed, not only by obstacles common to almost all streams-shoals and sand-bars -but its channel is thick set, in many places and for a long distance, with trunks of trees, called snags, firmly fixed in the bed of the river, with their points projecting at an angle well calculated to penetrate the bottom of a vessel which may be so unfortunate as to strike against them. And what adds to the danger, many of them have their points so far below

* This, and all other statistical estimates where the authority is not stated, were obtained from the appropriate department of the Government.

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