The canoe and bateau gave place to the steamboat, the steam cars took away from the steamboat much of its business, and in the last quarter century the city and interurban electric cars have taken over much of the short haul traffic, while to-day the motor car is dividing the passenger service and almost monopolizing the transportation of garden and dairy products into and about the cities. Who shall predict how soon some other method of transportation shall make the land and water traffic of to-day seem as archaic as the ox team compared with a high power racing car? The streams of Oregon and Washington afford one-third of the available water power of the United States. A small part of this is now being used to develop electric energy, transmitted at long distances at high voltage, though not comparable with one line in California that is transmitting electricity at a voltage of 150,000 a distance of about 250 miles. The potential possibilities are so vast they can scarcely be estimated. In the North one of the transcontinental railroad lines is formulating plans to operate its trains electrically between the Rocky Mountains and Puget Sound. The first cost will be great, but when the new service begins its greater economy and comfort will undoubtedly compel all competing lines to follow the lead of their rival. The Panama Canal has been in operation only a year and it is too soon even to predict its influence upon the ocean commerce of the North Pacific, but so far little of the lumber, fish, or other commodities from the Northwest have gone through it eastward. Its influence has been almost negligible, and while considerable freight has gone from the Middle States eastward fifteen hundred miles to Atlantic ports and thence around by water, the railroads of the Pacific Northwest have not as yet seen cause to alter their tariffs because of it. Doubtless, when the great war in Europe is ended, and normal conditions are regained, the Pacific Northwest will enjoy in full measure the benefit of this great ocean waterway. To-day passenger ships leave Puget Sound for Alaska ports on an average of every eighteen hours, and nearly as many freighters ply on the same route. The ocean commerce of the North Pacific with eastern Siberia, Japan, China, the Indies, and the Philippines across the Pacific, and with San Francisco, Hawaiian Islands and through the Panama Canal has, in the last few years, reached enormous proportions. Already the resources of six great transcontinental railroad systems are taxed to the uttermost to handle their part of it. On the floor of the United States Senate, January 24, 1843, in the course of debate upon "The Oregon Bill," participated in by Senators Archer, Benton, Calhoun, Choate, Linn, Morehead, McRoberts and Woodbury, Calhoun gave utterance to the following: