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During the early modern period, the transport of goods and passengers on ships and rafts was widespread not only in the lowlands, but also in the Alps.The waterway played an important role for transporting heavy loads. It was commonly used for regional trade and could also be part of the transalpine trafic. However, the ability of rivers to carry ships or rafts was not a "natural" one but was human-generated. In a changing economical, technical and political environment, this ability was a matter of constant reproduetion. This is especially the case in the Alps, where every waterway had an upper limit