This first form of competition of routes or, as it has been called, of alternative routes, often obtains where conditions of competition are more obscure than in these simple instances above named. In the rivalry for the imported plate glass or crockery traffic between the trunk lines and the Gulf roads, the competition is none the less of routes between Liverpool and Chicago, although the water carriage by way of New Orleans or Galveston is so much more roundabout. Freight actually moves from Boston to Chicago by a line 1786 miles long, via Asheville, N. C., while the direct distance is only 1004 miles.[77] From St. Louis to Meridian, Miss., is 512 miles by direct rail line; yet traffic may move over 2000 miles going to New York and then around.[78] The map on p. 271, showing the various rail and water lines concerned in traffic between New York and the little town of Troy, Ala., shows how widespread are the ramifications of competition of this sort. Manifold instances of such roundabout carriage have been elsewhere described in full.[79] They differ from the competition of parallel routes, however, in the important regard that absorption of the long lines by the short ones becomes both physically and financially impossible. Whenever a large area like the Pacific slope is devoid of manufactures, and wherever the source of supplies is sufficiently concentrated, as, for instance, in the manufacture of agricultural implements which are almost exclusively made in or about Chicago, we still have to do with a clear case of competition of routes, although a great number of carriers may participate in the business. When molasses or rice are only to be had from New Orleans, the centre of such business, the carriers to all tributary consuming points compete for the routing of it over their own respective lines. These carriers may operate either by land or sea or by a combination of both; and they may transport commodities by the most roundabout ways.[80] The determinant feature, however, distinguishing this class of competition is neither the mode or carriage nor its length; but is found in the fact that the commercial conditions at both ends of the line, points of origin and destination, are identical for each participant in the business. Direct competition of routes, therefore, has to do with pure transportation,--the creation of place values,--and this being the case, the relative cost of service is always a factor of moment.