Had this opening up to navigation been completed prior to the building of the railroads along the banks of the rivers and across the mountains, it would have been of inestimable benefit to the tributary country, but until its present population shall have increased ten fold, perhaps twenty fold, and the railroads shall be unable to handle the traffic; when the waterway craft shall be aids to the railroads, not competitors, I believe transportation of freight by steamboats or by barges with tugs will be impracticable. Steamboat service up the swift current with little cargo will fully offset any cheapening that may be possible down stream, so that most of the business will continue to be done by the railroads. However, the open river will undoubtedly be a check upon the railroads. A few weeks ago, at Lewiston, during the rejoicings over the opening of the upper Columbia to free navigation, one of the leading speakers remarked that the party in steaming up the river had seen but one other boat and she was tied to the dock. The state of Washington was in some measure benefited jointly with Oregon by the work in the Columbia basin noted above. The actual expenditures by the United States in Washington have been small in comparison. On Willapa Harbor they have been $241,878.39; at Gray's Harbor, $3,231,906.78; on Puget Sound they have been, at Olympia, $197,701.35; at Tacoma, $324,784.10; at Everett and Snohomish, $664,752.59; at Bellingham, $149,834.69; Skagit River, $101,455.54; Swinomish, $217,652.29. In addition to the work done at Tacoma by the United States, the railroads and the municipality have spent large sums in providing docks and other shipping facilities, and it is equipped to handle its full share of the Sound and seagoing traffic. The foregoing figures were furnished me from the office of the resident United States Engineer, Major J. B. Cavanaugh. Portland is the overshadowing city of the Columbia basin, and has always handled most of its business, while on Puget Sound trade and commerce have been divided. It is all a vast harbor and its cities have had access almost equally to the sea. Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, Everett, Bellingham, Anacortes, Olympia, and Port Townsend are credited with an aggregate of nearly three-quarters of a million of inhabitants.