As Vessels Of Considerable Tonnage Can Ascend
The St. Mary's River From The Sea On A Full Tide
To The
Wharves of the city, its citizens prophesy a
future growth and development for the place
when a river and canal
Route across the
peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of
Mexico shall have been completed. For many
years Colonel Raiford has been elaborating his
plan "for elongating the western and southern
inland system of navigation to harbors of the
Atlantic Ocean." He proposes to unite the natural
watercourses of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico
by short canals, so that barges drawing seven feet
of water, and freighted with the produce of the
Mississippi River and its tributaries, may pass
from New Orleans eastward to the southern ports
of the Atlantic States. The great peninsula of
Florida would be crossed by these vessels from
the Suwanee to the St. Mary's River by means
of a canal cut through the Okefenokee Swamp,
and this route would save several hundred miles
of navigation upon open ocean waters. The
dangerous coral reefs of the Florida and Bahama
shores would be avoided, and a land-locked
channel of thirty thousand miles of navigable
watercourses would be united in one system.
Lieutenant-Colonel Q. A. Gilmore's report on
"Water Line for Transportation from the Mouth
of the St. Mary's River, on the Atlantic Coast,
through Okefenokee Swamp and the State of
Florida to the Gulf of Mexico," in which the
able inquirer discusses this water route, has
recently been published.
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