Some day, perhaps, the great upper lake, Superior, will be made a
reservoir where enough water will be impounded in wet seasons for a steady
and more generous supply during the dry seasons; in which event there will
be water enough to keep Niagara in perennial beauty and power, to fill all
the present and prospective harbors and canals to their desired depths and
float even larger fleets of _Griffins_, and, at the same time, have enough
left to make the Mississippi, as the Frenchman who first saw it visualized
it, and as President Roosevelt, two centuries later, expressed it, "a loop
of the sea." [Footnote: Herbert Quick, "American Inland Waterways," New
York, 1909.]
But another amicable battle is on--a battle of the eastern levels--between
the men of the old French valley to the north (_i.e._, the St. Lawrence)
and the men of the old Iroquois valleys to the south, of the Mohawk and
the Hudson. In 1830 a canal was built by the latter from above the Falls
to the navigable Hudson, and with high ceremony a cask of the water of
Lake Erie was emptied into New York harbor as symbol of the wedding of
lake and ocean.
Pages:
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322