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THE INTRACOASTAL HIGHWAY

Boston is generally accepted as the northern and eastern terminal of the highway. Beyond that point the coast does not, save in a few places, readily lend itself to inland navigation. But Boston is the last important port in that direction. It is in value of its commerce the second port of the United States. It is the point where the intracoastal waterway most directly emerges upon the high seas, and where it is nearest to Europe. It is also a point where an exceptional number of great trunk railroad systems converge upon tidewater. For these reasons it will most appropriately constitute the upper terminal and perhaps on the whole the most important center of traffic of the whole coast system.

Boston is now connected with the intracoastal route by way of the Cape Cod Canal. That is beyond doubt a most useful passage, and will always enjoy an extensive patronage. It is not, however, suited to the chief purposes of the intracoastal waterway. Its principal utility is for oceangoing craft. Between it and Boston lies the broad stretch of Cape Cod Bay, almost a part of the high seas and not well adapted to navigation by the barges and other vessels which will throng the intracoastal route. For vessels which have hitherto gone from Boston to New York or southward around Cape Cod, and for those coming down from Portland and other points above Boston, to ports below the latter, it should always be of much value. But for the purposes of canal and other inland navigation there is needed a most sheltered route from Boston Harbor to Long Island Sound. This will be provided by the contemplated canal from Quincy or Weymouth to Fall River, supplemented by another through Rhode Island, from Narragansett Bay through Point Judith Pond and the other lagoons to Watch

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COAST DEFENSE GUN

A modern 14-inch coast defense gun at Sandy Hook. The gun is mounted on a disappearing carriage, which lowers it out of sight behind the breast works after firing. This is one of the powerful guns of the world, firing a projectile which would pierce the armor of a battleship more than five miles away.

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A BATTERY OF 12-INCH U. S. COAST DEFENSE MORTARS

These powerful weapons fire a projectile which weighs from 700 to 1,046 pounds, depending on the range desired, and which is
capable of piercing the deck armor of any battleship. They have a range of 20,000 yards with the 700-pound projectile. The gun is
163 feet long and is fired only at elevations between 45° and 65°.

Hill and Fisher's Island Sound. From the latter water the route is direct, down Long Island Sound to New York.

AT THE METROPOLIS

There are, however, plans for an alternative route which would possess great advantages for both commercial and military purposes. That is, to cross from Fisher's Island Sound to Gardiner's Bay and Peconic Bay, and thence by a short canal across the sand plains to the great chain of lagoons along the southern edge of Long Island, including the Great South Bay and Jamaica Bay, the last-named water giving a superb frontage in the metropolitan borough of Brooklyn. Thence passing back of Coney Island the waterway would reach New York Bay at Gravesend; from which point it could proceed to the Raritan River and trans-Jersey canal either by way of the Lower Bay or by way of the Kill van Kull, Newark Bay and Staten Island Sound. The latter route would doubtless be followed by all vessels which desired to be in touch with the trunk railroad lines, and very largely by all which came by way of Long Island Sound and the East River. It would take them directly to the doors of Newark and Elizabeth, and past the immense industrial and commercial establishments which will soon cover the Newark and Elizabeth meadows and will make those hitherto neglected regions one of the chief centers of business activity in the United States.

FROM THE DELAWARE SOUTHWARD

The remainder of the route is pretty well determined. A notably easy canal route has been surveyed across New Jersey, from Raritan Bay to the Delaware River and Philadelphia, whence improvement of the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal will carry it to Chesapeake Bay with

Charlestown

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access to Baltimore and Washington. From the neighborhood of Norfolk a canal will traverse the Dismal Swamp region to the Pasquotank River, or else will go directly from the Chesapeake and the James River to the head of Currituck Sound. In either case the route thence would be by way of Albemarle, Croatan, Pamlico, Core and Back sounds, to Beaufort, N. C. There is already a channel along which small vessels can thus pass from the Chesapeake to Beaufort inland, avoiding the terrors of Hatteras and Cape Lookout. Indeed, they may proceed about thirty miles further, along Bogue Sound to Bogue Inlet, at the mouth of White Oak River, where, however, there are no port facilities.

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Here, however, the inland thoroughfare now ends, and vessels must take to the open Atlantic to proceed to Wilmington, N. C., to Charleston, S. C., to Savannah, and other Southern ports. Obviously, that fact enormously impairs the value of the whole route. It makes it a waterway from Massachusetts Bay merely to Onslow Bay, on the North Carolina coast, instead of to the Gulf of Mexico, and it leaves Wilmington and the traffic of the Cape Fear River, Georgetown and the Great Pedee River, Charleston,

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