Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II | Page 6

of which our original reservoirs were
perhaps the richest in the world, are being rapidly exhausted. These
may be merely mentioned as being related to coal in the source of their
supply, in the nature of their uses, and in the economic problems to
which they give rise.
§ 10. #Transportation agencies#. First to mention among the means of
transportation are the navigable waters--oceans, lakes, rivers, and
canals, with the necessary equipment of dredged inlets, harbors, docks,
locks, and lighthouses. Few of these appear in the total of "capitals," for
they are not in private possession. Yet a good system of natural
waterways may be greater wealth to one nation than costly additional
railroads are to another. Good natural harbors on the waterways leading
out to the oceans are a most important kind of national wealth, as are
the navigable great lakes within the 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
township to that of building an inter-oceanic canal, from the question
whether to have free public roads or toll roads to that of regulating the
railroad rates on the whole railroad system of the country.
§ 11. #Raw materials for clothing, shelter, machinery, etc.# The farm
lands supply, besides food, a large part of the raw materials for many
other goods, such materials as cotton, flax, wool, hides, feathers,
lumber, and firewood. The farm woodlots compose about 200,000,000
acres, and the large forests, public and private, about 350,000,000 acres,
a total of about one-fourth the area of the country in forests, containing
about one-half of the lumber that the country once possessed. The
economic problem of a sound forestry policy is one of the largest we
have to solve.
The most important other sources of raw materials for industry are the
mineral deposits in the earth's surface.[8] This country is stored more
bountifully, probably, than is any other country, with the metal ores of
iron, copper, lead, zinc, gold, and silver. Aluminum is the most

abundant metal, composing about 8 per cent of the crust of the earth,
but by present methods it can be extracted only at considerable cost
from certain compounds that are limited in amount. The details as to
our metal stores are too complex for fuller treatment here, and may be
found in treatises on economic geology or on industrial geography. The
determination of wise policies as to the use of these stores involves
many economic problems, private and public.
Another great class of material wealth is in the form of tools,
machinery, and other agencies for carrying on the industrial processes
of farming and of manufacturing. These are sometimes called
instrumental goods, or the industrial equipment. Still another class
consists of the great mass of completed direct goods, such as houses to
live in, libraries, museums, school buildings, theaters, all kinds of
buildings and equipment for pleasure and entertainment, parks, and
pleasure resorts in mountains, at lakes or sea shore. The possession and
use of these forms of wealth give rise to some economic problems of
public ownership and to others connected with the institution of private
property in general, as sketched in the following chapter.
[Footnote 1: It is to be observed that these figures appear under the
general title of
Part I, "Estimated valuation of national