C. J.-- In the chapter on the Pilot's Monopoly, he notes that wages rose from $100 per month to $125 as business picked up, and then in full busy season rose to $250/ mo. which is the threshhold figure set by the association. But as the association grew in ranks, and the owners had no choice but to hire them. He notes: "When the pitlots' association announced, months before hand, that on the first day of September 1861, wages wold be advanced to five hundred dollars per month, the owners and captains instantly put freight up a few cents, and explained to the farmers along the river the necessity of it, by calling their attention to the burdensome rate of wages about to be established" (LOM, Penguin edition, p. 136). The inflation calculator at http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ shows $500 in 1861 to be equal to $10, 271.33 -- not a CEO's salary by any means but rather fitting the lofty status Twain claimed pilots deserved. Whether that was what he earned is not entirely clear. Perhaps someone who has researched his piloting career can confirm if his earnings matched the figures he cites in LOM. Larry Howe