ubject which ten thousand labored words, with the
same purpose in view, had left at last but dim and uncertain. Here is a
case of the sort--paragraph from the 'Cincinnati Commercial'--

'The towboat "Jos. B. Williams" is on her way to New Orleans with a
tow of thirty-two barges, containing six hundred thousand bushels
(seventy-six pounds to the bushel) of coal exclusive of her own fuel,
being the largest tow ever taken to New Orleans or anywhere else in the
world. Her freight bill, at 3 cents a bushel, amounts to $18,000. It
would take eighteen hundred cars, of three hundred and thirty-three
bushels to the car, to transport this amount of coal. At $10 per ton, or
$100 per car, which would be a fair price for the distance by rail, the
freight bill would amount to $180,000, or $162,000 more by rail than by
river. The tow will be taken from Pittsburg to New Orleans in fourteen
or fifteen days. It would take one hundred trains of eighteen cars to
the train to transport this one tow of six hundred thousand bushels
of coal, and even if it made the usual speed of fast freight lines, it
would take one whole summer to put it through by rail.'

When a river in good condition can enable one to save $162,000 and a
whole summer's time, on a single cargo, the wisdom of taking measures to
keep the river in good condition is made plain to even the uncommercial
mind.

Chapter 29 A Few Specimen Bricks

WE passed through the Plum Point region, turned Craighead's Point,
and glided unchallenged by what was once the formidable Fort Pillow,
memorable because of the massacre perpetrated there during the war.
Massacres are sprinkled with some frequency through the histories of
several Christian nations, but this is almost the only one that can be
found in American history; perhaps it is the only one which rises to a
size correspondent to that huge and somber title. We have the 'Boston
Massacre,' where two or three people were killed; but we must bunch
Anglo-Saxon history together to find the fellow to the Fort Pillow
tragedy; and doubtless even then we must travel back to the days and the
performances of Coeur de Lion, that fine 'hero,' before we accomplish
it.

More of the river's freaks. In times past, the channel used to strike
above Island 37, by Brandywine Bar, and down towards Island 39.
Afterward, changed its course and went from Brandywine down through
Vogelman's chute in the Devil's Elbow, to Island 39--part of this
cou