boundaries or on the borders of a country. Just in proportion as these
natural means of transportation are lacking, is the need to build
costly artificial means of transportation.

Both in natural and in artificial means of transportation, America
is well provided. The straight coast line is 5700 miles long, and the
line following indentations of the coast is about 64,000 miles. The
Great Lakes with a straight shore line of 2760 miles are the most
important inland waterways in the world. The 295 navigable rivers in
the country have a length of 26,400 miles of navigable water. About
2000 miles of canals are still in operation. On the waterways some
27,000 American vessels are in use, with a capacity of 8,000,000 gross
tons.[7]

There are about 250,000 route miles of steam railroads, or with
additional tracks, yard tracks, and sidings, a total of about 370,000
miles. On these are over 63,000 locomotives, 52,000 passenger cars,
and 2,400,000 freight and company cars. Besides these are 45,000 track
miles of electric railways and nearly 100,000 cars. These railroads
include an enormous aggregate of works and structures in the form of
tunnels, cuts, banks, bridges, stations, and shops.

There are in the country (1914) about 2,228,000 miles of public
roads, of which 10 per cent are "surfaced" roads. No figures are now
available of the number of wagons, horses, automobiles, and
other vehicles in use on the roads and streets for purposes of
transportation.

Many of our economic problems are presented by these transportation
agencies, from the question of opening a new dirt road in a rural