and receiving through tributaries the direct commerce of the six bordering States, and more or less directly the trade of all parts of the Mississippi valley, appears, by the facts before the committee, to need only, for the almost perfect improvement of its navigation, the creation of a few dams to supply its channel with water in periods of drought.

The committee have no data for estimating the probable cost of these works beyond the individual opinion of Mr. Ellet as a practical engineer3 which opinion is not based upon direct survey instituted for the purpose of forming such an estimate, but merely from personal reconnoissances, in which his judgment was aided by the results of surveys made on former occasions, and for other purposes. Therefore, while the committee express their entire conviction of the practicability of this plan of improving the Ohio and many other western rivers, they are not prepared to present sufficient evidence of the probable cost of obtaining any given depth of water. In the opinion of the projector of this scheme, based upon his personal observations and reconnoissances, a depth of three feet can be secured throughout ordinary summer droughts for a sum not exceeding $250,000; and a depth of four feet, which will be sufficient to float the Pittsburg and Cincinnati packets, for a sum not exceeding $500,000. Of the sufficiency of these sums Mr. Ellet expresses much confidence; but it is not necessary that they should be correct to justify the construction of the works. The sum of $500,000, which is the cost stated for a E permanent navigation four feet deep on the Ohio, is only about the onethird part of the cost of enlarging three miles of the Erie canal at Lockport; and $250,000, the estimated cost of a navigation for steamboats of three feet draught, is less than the annual cost of maintaining the Erie canal in New York. In truth.it is difficult to conceive of a plan more simple to execute, or easier to maintain, than that which is now offered for the improvement of the navigation of the Ohio. The construction of a few dams will complete the work; the employment of one agent at each dam, and a superintendent for the whole system, completes the outfit.

But it is obvious that, if this mode of improving the navigation of the great rivers of the west can be applied with the certainty and facility maintained by its author, and supported by facts, observations, and arguments which appear to be irresistible, its application cannot be limited to the Ohio river, but must be eventually extended, by the federal government or by the separate States, over the greater part of that vast system of navigable rivers which has an aggregate development of fifteen or twenty thousand miles in the Mississippi valley.

It is important, therefore, that any appropriation for permanent works of this description should be preceded by accurate and minute surveys of the sites which these works are to occupy, of the lands which will be flooded, and careful measurements of the volume of water which can be retained in each reservoir, and estimates in detail of the dams and the procurement of the sites.

The committee deem it important, also, that measurements of the quantity of water flowing down the Ohio, in every condition of the surface, similar to those which have been made by Mr. Ellet at Wheeling, should be undertaken at other points on the river-as Pittsburg and Cincinnati-that Congress may know, from actual survey, what depth will be produced at each of these points by the passage of given volumes of water in given times.

The committee are informed by Mr. Ellet that the cost of making these

surveys and measurements will not exceed the sum of $15,000, and that they can be accomplished during the current year, and in time to lay the results before the next Congress.

The committee will not press upon the attention of the Senate their opinions of the vast public importance of obtaining a certain and effec tual plan of improving and extending the river navigation of this country. They believe that the value of such a suggestion will be appreciated by every practical mind; yet there are a few facts bearing upon this subject which may be profitably adverted to in this connexion.

The progress and value of the steam navigation of the rivers of the Mississippi valley is indicated, in some degree, by the number of boats now plying, and the number that is annually built. The statistics on this interesting subject are imperfect; yet facts enough are known for the general conclusion which we wish to draw in this report. Steam naviga tion may be regarded as successfully begun on the Ohio in the year 1817: and the number of steamboats in use on all the western waters at various periods, from that date down to the present time, appears to have been as follows:

In 1817 there were in use about 14 steamboats.

In 1829

In 1834

From the rate of increase exhibited in this list, the number of bo now running on all the waters of the Mississippi must be at least four teen hundred; but in 1843, according to the authority of James Hall. his work on the commerce of the west, from which these facts are taken. the steamboat tonnage of the Mississippi valley alone was 50 per cent greater than the total steamboat tonnage of the whole British Empire But the tonnage of the western waters is now nearly two and a ha times as great as it was in 1843, and probably greater than the tota steamboat tonnage of all other parts of the world.

In 1842 the value of the commerce of the west was estimated by committee of the Senate, on the most authentic data that could then be obtained, at $220,000,000 per annum. In 1848 it was estimated, in the work already quoted, at $450,000,000; and if the same rate of increase has prevailed up to the present time, as that which had taken place be tween 1842 and 1848, the present value of the commerce which floats of the Mississippi and its tributaries cannot be less than $530,000,000 an nually.

It is to participate in this vast inland trade-which, certainly, has equal on the earth-that the State of Pennsylvania has expended $13,000,000 on the main line of her improvements, stretching from t Delaware to the head of the Ohio; and it is to participate at still grease advantage in that same rich traffic that the merchants of Philadelphia now expending $10,000,000 more on a railroad parallel with the Stat improvement, and directed to the same point.

It is to share the trade of the Ohio that the citizens of Baltimore hare already expended $14,000,000 on a work which will yet require an or lay of six or eight millions more before they can reach the Ohio. T same object has already allured the State and citizens of Virginia into an

expenditure of nine or ten millions of dollars, and to contemplate a further outlay of at least an equal sum, on their central railroad and James river and Kanawha improvement. The same channel of commerce has attracted the railroads leading out of Savannah and Charleston to the banks of the Tennessee, and is extending their common stem to the Ohio. A similar effort, directed towards the same object-the division of the trade of the Ohio-has already commenced in a railroad now under way from the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the Ohio.

All these improvements-in the construction of which at least one hundred millions of dollars have been actually expended or pledgedare directed to the Ohio river; and yet that river, bearing an annual commerce worth hundreds of millions, remains unimproved, and during one third of every year is either frozen or nearly dry; and this stream an experienced engineer, who has studied the subject minutely and laboriously, declares to be susceptible of permanent and effectual improvement for an outlay of six or seven hundred thousand dollars. But the commerce of the Ohio, vast as it is, is also closely connected with that of the lakes of the north by numerous lines of public improvement. This lake commerce, in 1846, was valued at more than $100,000,000, and required then for its transportation no less than 80 steamboats and 370 sail-vessels. It is believed that this trade now gives activity to more than 600 steamboats and sail vessels,. while that of the Ohio keeps in motion, whenever the depth of water is sufficient to permit them to run, a large proportion of the 1,400 steamboats now plying on the western rivers. The improvements which connect the commerce of the lakes with the commerce of the rivers are dependant on both for their support; and whatever protects or fosters either the one or the other, at the same time protects and encourages the lines of improvement by which they are united.

The committee do not deem it necessary to enlarge at this time upon these vast interests. It is enough to know that property valued at more than $500,000,000 is annually put in jeopardy and exposed to loss and detention on the Ohio and other kindred streams; that some four hundred steamboats, conveying this commerce, and eight or nine millions of persons besides, ply at disadvantage, or are frequently subject to entire stoppage from want of water; and to know that there is probably a cheap and simple process by which the needful water can be supplied, and this vast navigation fitted for the commerce that it floats and adapted to the end it was intended to fulfil in promoting the prosperity of the country.

In presenting the foregoing scheme to the consideration of the Senate, the committee have not been forgetful of the vast amount and great variety of interests which must be favorably affected by it, should it be found by experience to be adapted to the ends proposed. The extent and importance, in a national view, of the valley of the Mississippi, have often been casually brought before the American people; and the attention of Congress to its vast and rapidly increasing commerce has been frequently, but as yet very imperfectly, arrested. The commercial statistics which are officially collected and made known to the government and people being almost exclusively confined to the trade of the seaboard, that portion of this traffic which, through railroads and rivers, occupied by steam power, finds its way into the interior, is little known, and, by consequence, but too often considered as not entitled to that consideration which exterior commerce receives. The population of the Mississippi valley, or that portion of territory drained by the Mississippi and its tribu

taries, of which last the Ohio river is the chief, may now be safely esti mated at nine millions.

At the first session of the 29th Congress Mr. Calhoun, as chairman of a committee of the Senate to which the subject of the improvement of the navigation of the Mississippi river and its tributaries had been referred, made an elaborate report, to be found in Senate document of that session, No. 410. Adverting to the population of the Mississippi valley, that report makes the following statement:

"But, as great as this increase and improvement have been, they are nothing compared to what may be expected in the next sixty years. They advance with an accelerated rapidity. The whole population in the entire region drained by the Mississippi did not, according to the first census, (1790.) exceed 200,000. According to that of 1800 it had increased, in round numbers, to 560,000. In 1810, it had increased in like numbers to 1,370,000; in 1820, to 2,580,000; in 1830, to 4,190,000; in 1840, to 6,370,000; and in 1846, to 8,920,000, estimated according to the ratio of increase between the census of 1830 and that of 1840. Estimating it at the same rate, it would in 1856 exceed twenty millions; in 1866, forty millions. It is, however, scarcely possible for the increase to keep pace with the present ratio; but, after making ample allowance for its retardation with the increase of population, it may be regarded as 3 safe calculation that the population of the valley will reach twenty-five millions in the next twenty years, forty in the next forty years, and sixty in the next sixty years, unless some shock should occur which would convulse or overthrow our political institutions."

and

This large population, which in the last age would itself have con- ! stituted a formidable empire, is, as we know from well known facts, laboring, throughout every step in its efforts, under burdens upon its industry. arising from obstructions in its commercial exchanges, for which genera legislation alone can effectually provide, and the expenses of which are so trifling, compared with the magnitude of the evil, that they would not be felt as a burden on the commerce it is proposed to relieve.

The great rivers embraced in the designation-the Mississippi and its tributaries- -are the property of the nation, and not of the States or of in dividuals. If navigable, they are public highways. They have nev been sold as portions of the public domain, because, being national high ways, they were reserved from sale, free to the use of all the people of the United States in common.

If the facts to which the committee have deemed it necessary to advert, respecting the navigation of the Ohio river, its present obstructed con dition, and the cheap and facile method of relief proposed, shall be deem ed well founded, the committee recommend prompt action on the subject.

In order to secure to the plan proposed a fair and perfect test of its value. the committee believe that able and experienced engineers should be ea ployed by the government to make the preliminary surveys and exam nations, to be reported to Congress as early as practicable.

How far it may be important to secure the services of the originator of the proposed plan of improvement is a question, in the opinion of the committee, which properly belongs to the appointing power.

The committee therefore recommend, preparatory to the accomplish ment of the objects of this report, an appropriation of $20,000, to be ex pended, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, by a mixed commission of topographical and civil engineers.

1st Session.

No. 192.

IN SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

SEPTEMBER 9, 1850.

Submitted, and ordered to be printed.

Mr. WALES made the following

REPORT:

The Committee on Indian Affairs respectfully submit the following report on the claim, referred to it, of the Seneca Indians, of New York, for certain moneys lost by them through one of the agents appointed by the government for the management of their affairs:

By the 4th section of the act of June 27, 1846, making appropriations for the Indian department, the Secretary of War was "required to ascertain what annuities or moneys have been wrongfully withholden from the said Senecas, by the late sub-agent of the United States, and so lost to them;" and, to enable him to perform this duty in a satisfactory manner, he was authorized to appoint a commissioner or commissioners to make the necessary investigation, and to collect testimony in relation to the matter; and the result was required to be reported to Congress. The sum of $500 was at the same time appropriated to defray the expenses of such investigation. The Secretary of War appointed a commissioner accordingly, who made a careful and laborious investigation of the whole case-occupying the greater portion of an entire year-and who submitted an elaborate report of the facts, ascertained by him, accompanied by the evidence he collected in relation thereto. This report and evidence were submitted by the Secretary to Congress, on the Sth of January, 1848, as a compliance, on his part, with the requirements of the law, and comprise Senate document No. 31, first session thirtieth Congress. The investigation and report thus procured and carefully made, and submitted to Congress by a high executive officer, in fulfilment of the duty imposed upon him by the law, to ascertain the merits and extent of the claim, may, it is presumed, be safely relied on. The committee perceive no good reason to doubt the correctness of the results and conclusions arrived at by the commissioner. Before proceeding to state them, and the facts connected with them, however, it is deemed proper to give a brief view of the position held towards the Indians in question by the agent appointed for them by the United States, in order that the merits of the case, and the obligations of the government arising out of it, may the more clearly be understood.

At an early period, when the affairs and interests of these Indians, and their relations with the government and our citizens, were becoming more complex and important, they felt the necessity of having an agent, in whom they could confide, to attend to their interests and to manage their concerns for them. The government obligated itself to provide them with

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