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32	MEXICAN	GULF	COAST	ILLUSTRATED.
Birmingham, admittedly the great centre of the coal and iron region of the South, lies on radial lines, 160 miles nearer to Mobile than any other Atlantic port and 35 miles nearer than any other Gulf port; by the shortest constructed rail linesstjs 193 miles nearer to Mobile than to Savannah and 91 miles nearer to Mobile than to New Orleans.
Specific, information, maps and circulars may be had by addressing the Secretary of the Commercial Club, 72 St. Michael Street, Mobile, Ala.
The claim made for the city of Mobile is no doubt well founded that there is not* elsewhere in the world, such combined industrial and commercial wealth upon watercourses that feed a single port. The liberal appropriations made by Congress to improve the navigation of the above rivers has already given an impetus to commerce along their banks, which is necessarily felt at Mobile. The Bay channel 1ms been, and will continue to be, deepened. An important fact in connection with the outer bar must not be overlooked. This bar differs from all others on the Atlantic and Gulf Seaboard in this, that while from natural causes the depth of the channel in them has been decreasing, unless prevented by artificial means, exactly the reverse is the case at Mobile. The depth in the channel at the outer bar has been gradually increasing from natural erosion as far back a« the records go. It is a significant fact that at the last visit of the U. S. Dry Dock Commission to Mobile her advantages were signally apparent as a site for the great dry docks and navy yard to be built somewhere on the Gulf by the United States. The government engineer. Major Damrell, reported to the commission that for an appropriation of $3,000,000 he would guarantee a perfect 30-foot, channel to Mobile wharves. In the event of selecting Mobile as the point for such an important plant, it would result hi the expenditure of a very large amount of money. Mobile would become to the South what Philadelphia is to the East in naval affairs.
The Commercial Clur is an organization made up of prominent, progressive, and aggressive men of the city who understand the situation, and are taking vigorous, persistent, judicious and effective measures to bring into notice the superior advantages and exceptional opportunities which Mobile offers to capitalists and to shrewd business men everywhere, who make good investments and cast in their lot at the threshold of an era of great prosperity for this promising and growing city. It is a foregone conclusion that there must, and will be. a great metropolitan city on the coast line between Florida and the mouth of the Mississippi river—a focal and distributing point for an enormous volume of commerce which will growr out of a rapid increment in the development of the wonderful natural