Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/96

84 Seattle for his line paralleling the road from Portland to Seattle. And certain it is that the people of the Pacific Northwest if they fail to make a careful inquiry into the problem of supplying themselves with an adequate and an economic system of transportation will burden themselves and their posterity with ill-adapted railway duplications and will continue to serve as pawns for the railway magnates in their game for the prizes of transcontinental traffic.

In the general survey of the situation in the Pacific Northwest it was noticed that the lay of the land and the characteristics of the waterways of this region indicated large utilization of them for purposes of commerce. The safest and probably the quickest way to determine what part and how large a part these waterways are adapted to have in a fully adjusted system of transportation for this region is to trace the development of man's experience in using them and the growth of his plans and achievements in improving them. Barring a few formidable obstructions, the major portion of which have already been obviated and all of which are at a reasonable expense susceptible of being permanently obviated, the Columbia River throughout its course approximates more nearly the character of a ship canal than probably any other river in the world. The Canadian Pacific has run boats on regular schedules on its uppermost stretch, penetrating even to its source, some sixteen hundred miles from its mouth. Much as Hendry Hudson on his voyage of discovery sailed up the river that took his name to where Albany now stands, so Lieutenant Broughton, of Vancouver's expedition, profiting through introduction of Captain Gray, pushed the limits of discovery with his vessel to a point near the Cascade Mountains, one hundred miles up stream.

Though the initial cost of obtaining an "open river" throughout the main stream and the important tributaries will be considerable, the permanency of such improvements and the smallness of the sums necessary for maintenance more than compensate. Such is the general firmness of its