Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 11).djvu/155



N the study of the Ohio River as a highway of immigration and commerce it was emphasized that in earliest pioneer days the ascent of the river was a serious and difficult problem. This was true, indeed, not on the Ohio alone, but on almost every river of importance in the United States. Of course brawny arms could force a canoe through flood-tides and rapids; but, as a general proposition, the floods of winter, with ice floating fast amid-stream and clinging in ragged blocks and floes along the shore, and the droughts of summer which left, even in the Ohio, great bars exposed so far to the light that the river could be forded here and there by children, made even canoe navigation well-nigh impossible. For other craft than light canoes navigation was utterly out of the question in the dry seasons and