General BEACH. This is the case of Alligator Creek and FourMile Creek in Scuth Carolina. Alligator Creek is a small tidal stream entering the South Santee River near its mouth. It forms. part of the inland waterway between Charleston and Winyah Bay, S. C., and as such is under improvement under a project providing for a channel four feet deep at mean low tide and 60 feet wide. The mean range of tide is about 5 feet. Four-Mile Creek is a small tidal stream flowing through the swampy delta between the South and North Santee Rivers and into the latter.

The CHAIRMAN. Can you show us from the map, General, what is proposed to be done?

General BEACH. It is a little difficult for those at a distance to see the waterways on this map, because it is so flat colored. It does not show them very well. But at present the inland waterway follows this route shown in red, which you can see makes a long detour around through Six-Mile Creek and other waterways, and it is proposed to make this cut-off [indicating], and then to make this further cut-off from Alligator Creek to this other small creek [indicating].

The people desired to have this bend [indicating] in Alligator Creek cut off and the line run straight, but it was found that that would be pretty expensive, and the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors did not consider that the cost was justified, and in that I agreed with them. It might possibly be worth while several years later, when there is a large commerce; but the ground is relatively high through there, and the detour is not very great. The proposed canals, as you will see from examining the map, will obviate very long detours or forcing the small boats out into deeper water, both of which are quite objectionable.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a part of the canal system, General? General BEACH. It is a part of the inland waterway from Charleston to Winyah Bay.

Mr. GASQUE. And also of the general inland waterway down the coast.

General BEACH. Of the general inland waterway through the entire Atlantic coast.

Mr. HULL. What is the size of the channel?

General BEACH. We recommend the construction of a channel 4 feet deep and 60 feet wide in Four-Mile Creek, with a cut through the marsh to connect with the South Santee River, at an estimated cost of $51,000, with $1,000 annually for maintenance for the first two years, and probably $500 a year thereafter, provided that local interests shall furnish, without cost to the United States, the necessary rights of way and provide suitable areas for the disposal of excavated material.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, what is the other project?

General BEACH. That is the only one that is recommended.

Mr. GASQUE. The distance here [indicating on map] is 111⁄2 miles, and it is very crooked. It is almost impossible to have any commerce through there.

The CHAIRMAN. What about the commerce here, General?

General BEACH. Increased tonnage is expected to result from these improvements. The district engineer estimates that the saving in freight rates would amount to about $19,000 by a 4-foot

waterway, and to about $24,000 if a depth of 6 feet is provided. The board, however, did not consider that those figures were quite accurate and recommended the 4-foot waterway.

The CHAIRMAN. And this is in fact a part of the inland waterway system from Maine to Florida?

General BEACH. Yes, sir.

Mr. GASQUE. Yes, sir. Between five and six hundred yachts at least went through that channel this year. They are going through right now. They go right around from Beaufort, N. Č., around the coast to Georgetown, and practically all of them, the smaller ones especially, go through that waterway.

Mr. LYON. Then New York, Boston, and Philadelphia are also interested?

Mr. GASQUE. To show you how much the general country is interested, we had a hearing before the Board of Engineers last summer, and when we got there we found men from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and everywhere, who were urging this very thing. We were asking for it for local interests, but they seemed to be more interested in it than we were. We had one man who came from Boston who had a photograph of every crook in that river. He showed where he got stranded, and he had pictures of all the trees; he had been through there so many times.

I might add, gentlemen, that one of the main reasons that we are interested in the project is this: Right over here [indicating] is McClellanville, S. C., a town of about 1,500 people, probably. They have no transportation at all, except two small tugboats that come in twice a week from Charleston. This land is very fertile, and their tonnage to-day is nothing compared to what it will be if they can get this project through. It is impossible to get a steamboat line through to McClellanville by this roundabout way, which is a precarious route as well as a long one. If this is granted, the business men propose to put on a steamboat to give these people daily travel. The richest land in the whole South, practically, is right around this

coast.

Mr. SWEET. What is the crop?

Mr. GASQUE. The crop has been sea-island cotton, but the boll weevil has come in, and there is no sea-island cotton, and now they want to go into the truck business, raising potatoes and all kinds of vegetables. They have raised truck on those islands around Charleston, but they can not get it out. The truck, you know, has got to be moved. If they can get a steamboat to come down there, they can get it right out on the train that night.

Mr. McDUFFIE. Can you give us approximately the number of people who live around there, including McClellanville?

Mr. GASQUE. There are a good many people; I could not tell you exactly how many. A good many people have already moved out in the last few years. They have left their homes because they can not produce sea-island cotton and they can not get their truck out. But if they could get this boat line there, it would be very thickly settled.

The CHAIRMAN. How large an area of land is contiguous to and would use this waterway?

Mr. GASQUE. The distance is about 59 miles, I think, from McClellanville to Georgetown.

The CHAIRMAN. And how far on each side of the canal?

Mr. GASQUE. On only one side of the canal, because the other side is right on the Atlantic Ocean, and it is all marsh. But these lands are very fertile lands.

The CHAIRMAN. Approximately how many miles from the canal? Mr. GASQUE. It extends on back to the Santee River, from 50 to 75 miles.

The CHAIRMAN. How near is the nearest railroad to the canal? Mr. GASQUE. The nearest railroad is at Georgetown. Of course the entrance to Georgetown is right through Winyah Bay. There is no railroad at all between there and Charleston. From anywhere in that territory to McClellanville it would be from 50 to 100 miles.

There is one other thing I would like to say. There are millions of feet of lumber up there that it is almost impossible to get out unless they can get this opening here, because these barges that bring the lumber can hardly get around that crooked river.

Mr. WILSON. Could you get your lumber and all your freight out of there with a 4-foot channel?

Mr. GASQUE. Well, we were asking for a 6-foot channel, but the board reported adversely.

Mr. WILSON. I say, could you get it out!

Mr. GASQUE. I think they could. They are getting it out of there now, around this other river.

Mr. LYON. You use a stern-wheel steamboat, do you not?
Mr. GASQUE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. General, what do you say as to the fertility of the soil in the country adjacent to this canal?

General BEACH. Where it is dry enough to cultivate anything, or can be made dry and kept free from salt water, it is extremely fertile. The CHAIRMAN. What do you say, from your observation, as to the people away from this vicinity being interested in the waterway as a part of the intracoastal waterway, and using it as a part of that waterway during a considerable part of the year in going between the northern ports and Florida?

General BEACH. It is, in my opinion, a very important link of the inland waterway along the Atlantic coast. It is used not only by local craft, but by people passing north and south in their house boats during the winter, and also at other times. This cut would save a 10-mile detour through very difficult streams or a detour out into exposed waters, and on every account it seems a very advisable project.

The CHAIRMAN. Passing through a country destitute of railroads within 50 to 100 miles?

General BEACH. There are no railroads in this immediate vicinity at all. It is like the southern portion of Louisiana. Railroads can not be built right down into this region.

Mr. DEAL. Mr. Chairman, if that is a part of the intracoastal waterway, why 4 feet of water?

Mr. LYON. They can deepen it later on as they need it, perhaps. The CHAIRMAN. I suppose the explanation is this: We find as we get farther south that they have flat-bottomed boats, and they use a depth of water which we would not regard as practical in the North; but they seem to use it, and use it for all the purposes that they have. And the Board of Engineers, after an inquiry into the subject, seems

to be convinced that the depth proposed is a sufficient depth until we find out by actual experience that the commerce justifies the expenditure necessary to secure a greater depth.

Mr. HULL. Could they secure greater depth in a creek like that? The CHAIRMAN. Oh, yes.

Mr. LYON. I will state, Mr. Chairman, that I know of boats that are capable of carrying 300 tons of freight which draw 20 inches when they are unloaded, and when loaded if you give them 3 feet of water they can carry a considerable tonnage, because they carry scows, as they call them, or barges. The boat will carry a boatload of freight and a tow of two barges, and it will carry several hundred bales of cotton a trip. They are flat-bottomed stern-wheel boats.

Mr. DEAL. What I had in mind was the desirability of developing the intracoastal waterway with the idea not only of carrying such traffic as that, but that the smaller vessels of our Navy might be enabled to travel through it without going outside.

General BEACH. It is my understanding that the reason the board recommended 4 feet at this time was that that is about all that can be carried through the natural waterways in that immediate vicinity at present.

Mr. SWEET. That is what I was going to ask.

General BEACH. And you would not gain anything in the draft of the boats that you could take through.

The CHAIRMAN. By deepening this particular link?

General BEACH. By deepening this particular section beyond 4 feet. I have not the slightest doubt that when the canal is further developed this section will require, and will be given, a greater depth; but it is not needed at the present time.

Mr. DEAL. It is susceptible of having a greater depth?
General BEACH. It is susceptible of being enlarged.

Mr. DEAL. And what I had in mind was that from Charleston down the natural waterways take a good deal more water than that, do they not?

General BEACH. Some of them.

Mr. DEAL. Some of them. Well, it takes 6 or 7 feet?

General BEACH. Yes.

Mr. DEAL. We have not effected any development on the intracoastal waterway beyond Beaufort, have we?

General BEACH. No, sir; it has not been carried beyond that point.

Mr. LYON. We hope it will be.

The CHAIRMAN. The situation seems to be that while this is a small project, costing only $51,000, it is a part of the intracoastal waterway, and it has really a national as well as a local significance, although it is a very small and very shallow stream. I think, Congress man, that yachts 110 or 120 feet long can go through there, can they

not?

Mr. GASQUE. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. That is my understanding.

(Thereupon the committee proceeded to the consideration of other business.)

COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Washington, D. C., April 22, 1924.

The committee met at 2.30 o'clock p. m., Hon. S. Wallace Dempsey (chairman) presiding.

WRANGELL NARROWS, ALASKA

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Sutherland, we had some very interesting statistics given us by Congressman Newton regarding the returns which the Hawaiian Islands make to the United States, showing that we receive very much more from them than we spend on them. If you could give us some statistics of that nature in regard to Alaska we would like to have it.

Mr. SUTHERLAND. I will tell you why it is impossible to give them. Our greatest revenue producers in the Territory are fisheries and copper, and excess profits tax and all the internal revenue are paid in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, or Portland.

The CHAIRMAN. But they have them collated in the Census Bureau.

Mr. SUTHERLAND. But I can not get those. I have tried to. The CHAIRMAN. We have Congressman Newton's statement in regard to this improvement in the Hawaiian Islands.

Mr. SUTHERLAND. The difference between the Hawaiian taxes and the Alaskan taxes is that they pay the taxes in Hawaii, and so far as the revenue from Alaska is concerned that is paid in the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. He gave us the Alaska figures also.

Mr. SUTHERLAND. I will see him. He may have something on this income tax, but I tried to get them and could not.

Mr. McDUFFIE. I dod not think that Mr. Newton went into that. Mr. SUTHERLAND. For instance, in Alaska, one firm paid $218,000 to the Government-1 per cent on net profits-and for that year they must have paid a large excess profits tax in New York, and the same applies to the fisheries. The big taxes are paid outside of the Territory.

The CHAIRMAN. From my recollection it is pretty clear that Mr. Newton gave some figures. Mr. Newton, did you not the other day, when you were giving the statistics with regard to Hawaii, give the statistics as to Alaska also?

Mr. NEWTON. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I was sure you did.

Mr. NEWTON. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Can you give us what those figures are? Have you got them so that you can give them to us?

Mr. NEWTON. I can get them very quickly for you. I got them from the Treasury Department. I called on the Treasury Department for figures relating to our insular possessions.

The CHAIRMAN. They will have a considerable bearing on this question.

Now, General, will you tell us what there is to this project here? In 1922 I think we had quite full hearings on Wrangell Narrows.