_Articles._ _1886 to 1901_ _Fiscal year_ _Total for 16_ _inclusive._ _1902._ _years._ Coal 22,365,240-3/4 1,019,947-1/2 23,385,188-1/4 Salt 124,363-3/4 5,760-1/4 130,124 Oil 60,944-1/4 1,211-1/2 62,155-3/4 Whiskey 21,442-1/4 1,117 22,559-1/4 Tobacco 90,270-1/2 1,705 91,975-1/2 Cotton 140,213 2,299-1/2 142,512-1/2 Lumber 3,401,021 85,305-1/2 3,486,326-1/2 Corn and wheat 151,621 5,933-1/2 157,554-1/2 Iron: ore and manufactured 518,642-1/2 34,634-1/2 553,277 Steel rails 685,182 183,016 868,198 Produce 84,396-1/2 4,864 89,260-1/2 Hay and straw 198,523-1/2 6,224-1/4 204,747-3/4 Flour 19,830-1/2 510-1/2 20,341 Stock 98,954 4,233-3/4 103,187-3/4 Sugar and molasses 125,746-3/4 11,022-1/2 136,769-1/4 Staves and shingles 475,310-3/4 34,405-1/2 509,716-1/4 Cement 40,568-3/4 835-3/4 41,404-1/2 Miscellaneous 1,319,552 69,518-1/2 1,389,070-1/2 -------------- ------------- -------------- Total 29,921,823-3/4 1,472,545 31,394,368-3/4[80] Since 1825, when the first step toward improving the Ohio was taken, the general plan has been to secure additional low-water depths at islands and bars by the construction of low dams across chutes, by building dikes where the river was wide and shallow, by dredging and by the removal of rocks and snags. Various plans of improvement were seriously mooted. Among these Charles Ellet's plan of supplying the Ohio with a regular flow of water by means of reservoirs was strongly urged upon the Government about 1857.[81] Near the same time Herman Haupt proposed a plan of improvement by means of a system of longitudinal mounds and cross dams so arranged as to make a canal on one side of the river some two hundred feet wide, or a greater width, and reducing the grade to nearly an average of six inches per mile between Pittsburg and Louisville.[82] A few years later Alonzo Livermore secured a patent for a combination of dams and peculiar open chutes through the dams, arranged so as to retard the flow and lessen the velocity of the water from higher to lower pools without interfering with the free passage of the boats through the chutes; chutes were substituted for locks. In 1866 the condition of the river improvements and the great change in the river trade--which loudly called for improved methods--is tersely summed up by Engineer W. Milnor Roberts as follows: