Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 9).djvu/101

Rh easy it would be, and how little it would cost, in different places on the river where boats are accustomed to land, to project a sort of pier into the river, which inclining down stream, would at all times insure a place of safety below it. The advantages accruing from such projection to the places where they might be made would be very considerable, bring them into repute as landing places, occasion many boats and passengers to stop there, who otherwise would not, and soon repay the trifling expense incurred by the erection.

"The above observations are more particularly applicable to the Ohio; the following apply to the Mississippi, and point out the greatest impediments and the most imminent dangers attending the navigation of this heavy-watered and powerful river:

"These are, 1st. The instability of the banks.

2. Planters, sawyers, and wooden islands.