The steamboats were in constant danger from Planters, Sawyers, and Wooden Islands in the river. A Planter was a tree rooted fast to the bottom of the river and rotted off level with the water. Sawyers were less firmly rooted, and rose and fell with the water, being more dangerous when they pointed down stream. Wooden Islands were logs accumulated against planters.[305] From 1822-1827, the loss of property on the Ohio and Mississippi by snags alone, including steam and flat boats, and their cargoes, amounted to $1,362,500. The losses on the same items, from 1827-1832, were reduced to $381,000 in consequence of the beneficial action of the snag boats.[306] These boats, constructed under the direction of the government, were successful in removing these obstacles at small expense, and with great facility.[307] As the settlements and business of the valley of the Ohio increased, the danger, delay, and expense of passing the Falls of that river, became a subject of general solicitude. Men of intelligence and enterprise, who were engaged in the river trade at Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and the intermediate towns, having been subjected to the inconvenience and expense caused by that obstruction, from the first settlement of the country, began to discuss the question, whether the difficulty could not be removed. William Noble, an enterprising merchant of Cincinnati, found that, at the time when the commerce of the West was in its infancy, the loss sustained by traders residing above the Falls, amounted in one year to $80,000, including storage, drayage, cooperage, commissions, and the wages of hands during the delay.[308]