d railroads.]

The cheapness and ease of river travel have tended to check or delay the
construction of highroads and railways, where facilities for inland
navigation have been abundant, and later to regulate railway freight
charges. Conversely, riverless lands have everywhere experienced an
exaggerated and precocious railroad development, and have suffered from
its monopoly of transportation. Even canals have in most lands had a far
earlier date than paved highroads. This has been true of Spain, France,
Holland, and England.[674] In the Hoang-ho Valley of northern China where
waterways are restricted, owing to the rapid current and shallowness of
this river, highroads are comparatively common; but they are very rare
in central and southern China where navigable rivers and canals
abound.[675] New England, owing to its lack of inland navigation, was the
first part of the United States to develop a complete system of
turnpikes and later of railroads. On the other hand, the great river
valleys of America have generally slighted the highroad phase of
communication, and slowly passed to that of railroads. The abundance of
natural waterways in Russia--51,800 miles including canals--has
contributed to the retardation of railroad construction.[676] The same
thing is true in the Netherlands, where 4875 miles (7863 kilometers) of
navigable waterways[677] in an area of only 12,870 square miles (33,000
square kilometers) have kept the railroads down to a paltry 1818 miles
(2931 kilometers); but smaller Belgium, commanding only 1375 miles (3314
kilometers) of waterway and stimulated further by a remarkable
industrial and commercial development, has constructed 4228 miles (6819
kilometers) of railroad.

[Sidenote: Relation of rivers to railroads in recent colonial lands.]

If we compare the countries of Central and South America, where
railroads are still mere adjuncts of river and coastwise routes, a stage
of development prevalent in the United States till 1858, we find an
unmistakable relation between navigable waterways and railroad mileage.
The countries with ample or considerable river communication, like
Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Paraguay, are all relatively slow in
laying railroads as compared with Mexico and Argentine, even when
allowance is made for differences of zonal location, economic
development, and degree of European elements in their respective
populations. Mexico and Argentine, having each an area only about