Many friends and specialists, who shall be unnamed, have been of assistance in various ways for which I am duly grateful. But a few have been so peculiarly helpful that it is fitting to make more particular mention of my personal obligation. Especially is this true of Hon. Balthasar H. Meyer of the Interstate Commerce Commission, from whom through many years of friendship and common interest in the subject, have come all sorts of aid and suggestion. Prof. F. H. Dixon of Dartmouth College, Statistician of the Bureau of Railway Economics at Washington, also a co-worker in the same field, has always without reserve freely shared the best he had to give. I have drawn liberally from his special contributions on transportation, particularly in the history of recent Federal legislation. Despite the difference in our point of view, the always friendly criticism of Frederic A. Delano, President of the Wabash Railroad, has been most welcome and serviceable. In matters of classification, Mr. D. O. Ives, Traffic Expert of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, has extended a helping hand. And I have profited greatly from the published work of Mr. Samuel O. Dunn, now Editor of the _Railway Age Gazette_. In this connection, acknowledgment should be made of my deep obligation to the other editors of that admirable technical journal, who have in series during a number of years afforded me an opportunity of reaching a class of readers and, it should be added, not infrequently of unsparing critics, whose intelligence and technical knowledge have held me to a strict accounting in all matters of fact or principle. Without this critical oversight, many statements, happily now tested, would have held less secure place. Then again, there is the entire staff of the Interstate Commerce Commission to whom I have been a care and trouble for so many years. Ungrudgingly have its members always given response to all sorts of requests, whether for documents, statistics or opinions. Without the official stores of information at Washington, this present volume would have been woefully incomplete. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE HISTORY OF TRANSPORTATION IN THE UNITED STATES Significance of geographical factors, 1.--Toll roads before 1820, 2.--The "National pike," 3.--Canals and internal waterways before 1830, 4.--The Erie Canal, 4.--Canals in the West, 6.--First railroad construction after 1830, 7.--Early development in the South, 9.--Importance of small rivers, 10. The decade 1840-1860, 11.--Slow railway growth, mainly in the East, 12.--Rapid expansion 1848-1857; western river traffic, 13.--Need of north and south railways, 14.--Traffic still mainly local, 15.--Effect of the Civil War, 16.--Rise of New York, 17.--Primitive methods, 17.