Show Representative J L Burnett of Alabama Ala-bama In arguing for the Coosa river Improvement fjvhlch he contended would not cost mote than 6000000 In addition to the 1300000 already spent upon it held that the coal trade justified jus-tified the Improvement There would be thirtyone locks In seventyfive miles of these but four are completed The engineer who favored doing the work claimed that coal could on Its completion be delivered on the Gulf at 175 per ton which would be only twentyfive cents per ton freight but as the round trip for a barge carrying 100 tons would 1 consume a week It seems rather a low estimate The channel at best would be but four feet so that no great loads could be floated And then as but fourpQihelocks 1 have been cornplolcd and thc cost hasbcen SUoftQQO not all for jthe locks of I J 1 course itseems rather to put the cost of the othor twentyseven with i the appurtenant work at only six millions mil-lions more No doubt the estimate for the work at its present stage would have been far below what it actually cost so that to Improve the Coosa river according to programme would amount probably to twelve millions or over and twelve million dollars would buy a pile of coal at 17G a ton |