Note 674 — Chapter XI · —The Anthropo-Geography Of Rivers

The cheapness and ease of river travel have tended to check or delay the construction of highroads and railways, where facilities for inland navigation have been abundant, and later to regulate railway freight charges. Conversely, riverless lands have everywhere experienced an exaggerated and precocious railroad development, and have suffered from its monopoly of transportation. Even canals have in most lands had a far earlier date than paved highroads. This has been true of Spain, France, Holland, and England.674 In the Hoang-ho Valley of northern China where waterways are restricted, owing to the rapid current and shallowness of this river, highroads are comparatively common; but they are very rare in central and southern China where navigable rivers and canals abound.675 New England, owing to its lack of inland navigation, was the first part of the United States to develop a complete system of turnpikes and later of railroads. On the other hand, the great river valleys of America have generally slighted the highroad phase of communication, and slowly passed to that of railroads. The abundance of natural waterways in Russia—51,800 miles including canals—has contributed to the retardation of railroad construction.676 The same thing is true in the Netherlands, where 4875 miles (7863 kilometers) of navigable waterways677 in an area of only 12,870 square miles (33,000 square kilometers) have kept the railroads down to a paltry 1818 miles (2931 kilometers); but smaller Belgium, commanding only 1375 miles (3314 kilometers) of waterway and stimulated further by a remarkable industrial and commercial development, has constructed 4228 miles (6819 kilometers) of railroad.