I herewith submit to your honorable body a communication from the Governor of Wisconsin, and an accompanying memorial from the Legislature of the same State.

SAMUEL MERRILL.

STATE OF WISCONSIN, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
MADISON, February 10, 1868.

To His Excellency, Hon. Samuel Merrill, Governor of Iowa:

SIR: I am advised that General Warren holds to the opinion that it is entirely practicable to connect the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan by a navigable channel through the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers.

It is claimed by those who have given attention to the subject that a low-water channel of quite or nearly four feet can be had at a cost comparatively inexpensive. Should the depth required reach six, nine or more feet, it is thought the cost would more nearly approximate to the cost of proposed channels of like depth elsewhere. While the channel must be made ultimately of the greater depth, and sufficient for military purposes, yet a temporary channel of four feet would give great relief to commerce.

Such is the size of the locks on the completed portion of the work, and the quantity of water in the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, that boats, flat-bottomed and much larger than any on the Erie Canal, can make the passage; and it is hoped, by the parties referred to, that a low-water channel of four feet will have capacity for commerce little less than the Erie Canal.

In this view, I suggest that brief memorials be prepared and passed, urging upon Congress, at its present session, an appropriation, more or less great.

Should the Legislatures of Minnesota and Iowa unite with Wisconsin in urging this, it is hoped that Congress, at its present session, may make a beginning which shall guarantee the ultimate completion of the work.

I inclose copies of a memorial passed by the Wisconsin Legislature of 1867, and of one to be submitted to the present Legisla ture. Possibly they may be of use in the preparation of a memorial for your State (if one shall be required).

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

LUCIUS FAIRCHILD.

A Memorial to Congress in relation to the project of connecting, by navigable channels through the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, the waters of the Mississippi River with the waters of Lake Michigan.

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled :

The memorial of the Legislature of Wisconsin respectfully rep

resents:

That the project of connecting the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan, by navigable channels through the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, has heretofore received the attention of Congress. Its growing importance to the country, the Northwest and the State, becomes each year more apparent, and each year, for six successive years, has induced the Legislature of Wisconsin to memorialize Congress.

The subject of connecting the Mississippi and the Lakes, has been considered by the people met in local, county, State and National Conventions by boards of trade and by the Legislatures

and Governors of States, and without exception by resolution, memorial and message, all have united in recognizing its importance, and in urging upon Congress attention and action in relation thereto. The character of the undertaking is alike apparent to Congress, the Legislatures and the people. It is rendered necessary, as a military measure, to protect against inroad and attack, a frontier extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, as a commercial measure, to enlarge the already inadequate outlets for an increasing commerce, thereby lifting from freights and ultimately from the people extortionate tariffs, and as a measure otherwise national, to establish out of avenues of intercourse and trade, bonds of national unity.

Whatever can be said of the national importance of connecting these waters by any channel, is equally true in reference to this channel. Nature unaided, has by way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, almost effected the desired connection. Aided by a few dams and locks, and altogether not to exceed five miles of canal, a channel, having in all but extraordinary stages of low water a navigable depth of four feet for one third of the way and nearly .three feet the remainder, reaching a distance of over one hundred and fifty miles from Green Bay upon Lake Michigan to Portage City upon the Wisconsin, has been open to regular commerce. Boats of light draft, in the ordinary stages of water, can now pass from Lake Michigan to Portage City and down the Wisconsin into the Mississippi River. Boats of three and four feet draft, have in stages of high water, repeatedly made the passage. Late in June, 1867, the Brooklyn, a steamboat of three hundred tons burthen, -loaded at Green Bay and without detention, delivered her cargo at the port of St. Paul.

Estimates of the cost of deepening and completing this channel have been made under the direction of Congress by Maj.-Genl. G. K. Warren. His report (other than preliminary), has not been made, or if made, has not been seen by your memoralist. But judging from the present condition of the work, the conformation of the country, the nature of the materials at hand and the supply of water, your memoralist is constrained to believe that the cost will be comparatively inexpensive and may not exceed for a channel

of four feet in low water, one-fourth; or of six feet two-thirds; or of nine feet three-fourths of the cost of a like channel in any other State. The quantity of water and the size of the locks are greater than in the Erie Canal, permitting the passage of flat bottomed and larger boats, so that a depth of four feet in the rivers is estimated, for the purposes of commerce, equal to at least six feet in the canal; an estimate strengthened by the fact that the motive on the canal is horse power and on the rivers steam.

With the channel extended to the Mississippi and reduced to a uniform low water depth of four feet, commerce will find relief in an outlet, with capacity little less than the Erie Canal. Estimating the average price per bushel for moving grain by rail from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan at twenty-nine cents and by water not to exceed fourteen cents; and estimating the quantity of grain exported yearly from Minnesota at ten millions of bushels, from Iowa twenty, Wisconsin fifteen and Northern Illinois fifteen, in all sixty millions of bushels, and upon the movement eastward of this, a single crop, the saving will be nine millions of dollars. Add to this the saving upon the western freights and it appears, that in a single year, a sum will be saved exceeding fourfold the probable cost of the work. It may be said that coming in competition with railroads, the grain will not go all by water and therefore the estimate is incorrect. Whether moved by rail or water, the grain must go at approximately water rates.

The navigable waters which it is proposed to improve and develop and the carrying places between the same are common highways, declared such by the ordinance of 1787 and are of the class of navigable waters over which the General Government has invariably retained control and to improve which it has long been its policy to make appropriations.

For these reasons your memorialist respectfully invites the attention of Congress to this subject, and while a necessity for economy in the administration of national affairs is apparent; yet, in the opinion of your memorialist, the pressing importance of an early completion of this work will justify Congress at its present session in undertaking the same: