THE great channels of trade in North America run east and west. The great river systems of the continent run north and south. There is, however, one striking exception to this general rule, where the course of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence breaks through the Appalachian Range, and forms a continuous waterway, 2000 miles in length, from the center of the continent to the Atlantic Ocean. Much of this water course is now open to navigation and the American Great Lakes have within the last twenty years witnessed the most remarkable maritime developments of any section in the world. The Lakes extend approximately 1000 miles from Duluth or Chicago to Buffalo through the very heart of America; and within the last two decades there has grown up on these Lakes a traffic whose tonnage exceeds that of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea combined; indeed the movement of vessels through the locks between Lake Superior and Lake Huron is twice the combined movement of vessels through the Suez and Panama Canals, and more tonnage passes Detroit in nine months than clears from New York or Liverpool in a year. Along or near these Great Lakes lives approximately forty per cent of the population of the United States. Not only are the shores of the Lakes thickly populated, but the territory contiguous to them is rich in agriculture and in mineral products. Wheat, grain, livestock, iron, coal and copper are among the great inheritance of this rich fertile region of our country. This region has also become a great manufacturing center. Flour, foodstuffs, packing products, automobiles, rails and other heavy steel products, and many other articles of commerce are produced in this region; and these articles, as well as the products of the soil and the mines, flow eastward over the waters of the Great Lakes until the port of Buffalo is reached, where they must be transferred to the rails, and move the last 500 miles of their journey to the seaboard by car rather than by boat.
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Jan 1, 1923
H I Harriman 
Open Access